[HN Gopher] Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages
___________________________________________________________________
Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages
Author : Vindl
Score : 172 points
Date : 2022-09-25 11:49 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| Havoc wrote:
| Scary, especially in light of the coming winter. This does seem
| to be ignoring some positives though - German putting some
| nuclear shutdowns on hold and France is looking like they might
| get their fleet back on track by beginning 2023 after they sorted
| out their corrosion issues. UK just fasttracked fracking (sigh)
| and sizewell C nuclear plant seems to have gotten the go ahead.
|
| Quite unfortunate that the writeup is on twitter though. To fix
| their broken UX you need threadreader and that in turn is broken
| too: "The table below"...nope no table. Videos broken too. So now
| you get to cross reference two broken platforms just to figure
| out what someone is trying to say. sigh...
| MisterSandman wrote:
| Not saying this isn't bad, but as long as the blackouts are
| frequent but short, I feel like heating is probably the least
| of our worries? Heat stays in a room for a while and most
| heaters don't stay on all day anyway.
|
| This is, at least, from my experience living in India (in a
| part where it does get cold). Heating was whatever since the
| blackouts Werner long, and since blackouts are normal, we had
| backup generators and UPSs for things like WiFi routers and
| elevators.
| rasz wrote:
| >German putting some nuclear shutdowns on hold
|
| They put _two_ reactor shutdowns on hold in case OIL powered
| floating generators wont suffice. Third one is being shut down
| permanently just like russian friends requested.
| https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/berlin-eyes-oil...
|
| >But despite warnings of multi-hour blackouts, Economy and
| Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck confirmed the country's
| planned nuclear power phase-out by the end of 2022.
|
| >Germany's nuclear exit will only be forestalled by a temporary
| cold reserve of two power plants, which could be reactivated if
| needed to ensure grid stability in the country's South
|
| >On Monday, Berlin decided to mothball two of its nuclear
| reactors for months despite a host of experts insisting they
| continue running, while the third will be shut down completely,
| to be replaced by swimming oil-fired power plants.
| bArray wrote:
| > German putting some nuclear shutdowns on hold
|
| This is precisely what I had been jumping up and down about for
| years, especially at the beginning of this year. The irony that
| Germany doesn't want nuclear power internally, yet buys their
| direct neighbour's nuclear power instead.
|
| > France is looking like they might get their fleet back on
| track by beginning 2023 after they sorted out their corrosion
| issues
|
| Apparently. I doubt it. Too little too late for this winter.
|
| > UK just fasttracked fracking (sigh) and sizewell C nuclear
| plant seems to have gotten the go ahead.
|
| I'll take fracking over freezing to death. The alternative is
| people will burn whatever is not nailed down, and you can bet
| that would be worse. Sizewell C is too little too late. None of
| this will make a difference this winter.
|
| > Quite unfortunate that the writeup is on twitter though.
|
| Something as important as this should be on a news outlet's
| website. People most definitely need to see it and read it.
| quonn wrote:
| Actually Germany usually exports power to France. In fact
| many of the nuclear plants in France don't work, especially
| this year.
| koheripbal wrote:
| "usually" just means when their renewable power happens to
| be running.
|
| French have been using the last few years to do maintenance
| on their nuclear plants.
|
| Going into this winter, Germany will suffer far far more
| than France.
| quonn wrote:
| Let's see. France heats with incredibly inefficient wall
| heaters.
|
| In any case, this winter is very special. It's not a good
| example to make an argument for one technology or
| another. Long-term I think Germany is better prepared. A
| lot of work has been going into heat pumps, properly
| isolating houses, renewables and so on.
| panick21_ wrote:
| If you already have a system where everybody uses
| electricity in house warming its far, far, far (and lots
| more fars) easier to switch to heat pumps while in
| Germany lots of houses have gas/oil heating. Going from
| that to heat pumps is 100x more difficult and costly.
|
| France is in a much better situation. Better isolation,
| heat pumps are technology independent, you just need
| reliable electricity.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Actually it is the other way around. The houses designed
| for electric heating usually don't have any heating pipes
| but just resistive heaters as part of the floor. You
| cannot convert that to heat pumps, you have to build a
| new heating system into the house including laying pipes,
| new floors.
|
| On the other side, if you have a central heating system,
| you can replace the burner with a heat pump and leave the
| rest mostly unchanged. I say mostly, as you want to
| optimize the whole system towards lower water
| temperatures to get higher efficiencies of the heat
| pumps. But this can be done, and if you have in-the-floor
| heating already, this can be skipped as that works with
| low water temperatures anyway.
| rightbyte wrote:
| You can have airair pumps, but ye airwater or waterwater
| (ground heat) is better. Especially if the house is not
| small.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Switching from electric heaters to heat pumps is very
| easy for the grid, but not at all easy in existing homes.
| Central heating needs water pipes, which traditional
| electric heating doesn't have. Adding the pipes is going
| to be a major hassle.
|
| I'm not sure if there is a major difference in
| insulation. Old houses are in Germany are not great, new
| houses usually are, and it's probably the same in France.
| koheripbal wrote:
| WINTER is a special case? Is this a serious comment?
|
| If renewables cannot handle WINTER then that's pretty
| telling of what quality of a solution it is.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Current existing renewables infrastructure, not renewable
| energy theoretically. If you had no natural gas
| infrastructure it would be useless.
| algorias wrote:
| We're talking about a winter with out-of-equilibrium
| energy markets here, not generic winter.
| hrpnk wrote:
| You can watch live on https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
| how cross-border exports look like across the countries.
| There is also a historical view.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Amazing that people shit on France when the have been
| providing and exporting nuclear energy for 40 years. Saying
| that nuclear plants don't work is just idiotic when at any
| point you can look at CO2 intensity and France is always
| among the very best, and the best for a country so
| industrialized. And not just in the last 5 years, but the
| last 30 years.
|
| And the only reason nuclear plants in France have been down
| this year, is because as always in the last 30 years, the
| French Left attempted to kill nuclear and starting in 2015
| started de-prioritizing it.
|
| And those plans will soon be online when the maintenance is
| done and then continue to provide green energy for decades.
|
| The failure in France was to try to get away from nuclear
| and stop building new plants. Instead starting to use more
| and more gas.
|
| France had amazingly advanced nuclear plants ready for to
| be built in large numbers to secure the future. But guess
| what happen, the French Left (with Greens) killed these
| programs.
|
| French nuclear works fine, and has been for 40 years. Had
| other countries acted like France we would be in a much
| better situation now.
|
| And I for one would prefer some temporarily offline plants
| rather then breathing lots and lots of coal dust.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah it's political. Greens have to get their money from
| somewhere, plus...plus sometimes people fuck up 200%. Not
| only not be in favor of something, and be neutral, that
| would be 100%. 200%, being doggedly against the only
| solution.
|
| I consider evangelical Christians to have fucked up 200%
| with their response to gay marriage, instead of fighting
| it they should have made it mandatory, much better for
| the current spread of untold sexual diseases, not only
| the ones you've heard of, but thousands of new ones. All
| because they couldn't form the only bubble (group of sex
| partners) that actually works, a bubble of two. Marriage.
| perlgeek wrote:
| > German putting some nuclear shutdowns on hold
|
| ... or at least we "want" to do that, but it turns out that
| some operators of nuclear power plants have delayed some much-
| needed maintenance in light of the upcoming shutdown, so at
| least Isar 2 doesn't seem to be ready to operate longer.
|
| And all the Bavarian politicians have "accidentally" failed to
| disclose this until far too late (in Bavaria, CSU is the
| dominant political party, and they aren't in power at the
| federal level right now, so don't feel compelled to play nice).
| michaelwww wrote:
| One day I noticed I only had a jar of mayo in the fridge so I
| decided to do an experiment and turn my refrigerator off. I cut
| my electricity bill in half. I'm able to get by on food that
| doesn't need to be refrigerated.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| I carefully read many of the well recherched comments.
|
| My take-away: Green parties all over Europe were in dictatorship
| of the accepted moral public opinion, making fun of counter
| arguments and led Europe (just Germany?) into the missery they
| are in now.
| thoughtstheseus wrote:
| Mostly Germany. France has a diversified national energy
| strategy of nuclear and gas from many areas.
| _ph_ wrote:
| And yet it was Germany which through this summer increased
| the power generation and exports to replace the missing
| French nuclear power in the European grid and keep it stable.
| thoughtstheseus wrote:
| Europe is saving its non-gas power generation for when they
| lose gas access.. That seems like an ok approach
| roenxi wrote:
| This is exactly the wrong moment to be deciding policy by
| tweetstorm. These issues _require_ an engineering report to
| digest, not soundbites. This person may not intend to produce
| soundbites, but if it makes a good Twitter chain it is a string
| of sound bites.
|
| I can't distinguish this thread from one of those crazy-lists
| people sometimes put together. It is too disjointed and lacks
| citations or developed thoughts.
| jtbayly wrote:
| I just read the screenshots of an actual article at the top. I
| mean, why isn't that article what was linked to?
|
| Ugh. I hate Twitter.
| libertine wrote:
| Or at least we have to assume that the people that managed to
| make the feat that he boasts about, know what they are doing:
|
| > _The European electricity grid is a modern miracle. It is the
| largest synchronous electrical grid (by connected power) in the
| world. It interconnects 520 million end-customers in 32
| countries, including non-European Union members such as Morocco
| or Turkey._
|
| But then he makes a sharp turn to:
|
| > _Here is the thing. The grid builds on physics, not
| ideology.(...)_
|
| ...So is the grid a feat of engineering, or ideology? Haven 't
| the decision makers being in contact with the ones who built
| and maintain this "modern miracle"? Or was this modern miracle
| the product of pure luck?
|
| To end up on:
|
| > _What am I trying to explain?_
|
| > _Europe will NOT deliver on its climate targets._
|
| > _The energy transition is an order of mangnitude more complex
| than laws or ideology allow for. Accept._
|
| Ok.
| kzrdude wrote:
| > non-European Union members such as
|
| and since 2022, also Ukraine and Moldova
| hef19898 wrote:
| Aparently those people creating the grid have been replaced,
| at all levels, by ideological do gooders led by politicians
| with the sole goal of ruining industry and living standards.
| According to authors like the one who's article we are
| discussing.
| [deleted]
| libertine wrote:
| guidethought wrote:
| I read it as 'guided thinking', but won't sound offending you.
| So please keep your mind eye spinning for a moment about this
| (missquoted): 'First, who keep you consumers honest about
| what's essential?'
|
| This may be another 'sound-bite', you named it so, but (another
| OT) i was asking myself, the 100% loss at the moscow-stock-
| exchange (on friday!?) wich about i read yesterday, where did
| the losses went... and maybe with another (there was a
| 'unuseful'-swinging within what you wrote) 'sound-bit' you may
| become a larger view (perception ? perspective...word-
| list...full-text...what ever, feel free to name it by
| yourself... and good luck to estimate what may be in your
| intention, and what...^^), which is commanded right for your
| (opened) eyes... (-:
|
| _hu_ well now for my own, i thought that was a bit
| 'offending' never mind...
| thrown_22 wrote:
| There are far too many people who don't understand the difference
| between power and energy.
|
| If you give me a lump of coal you give me power. If I burn that
| coal I get power.
|
| Renewable energy is cheap. Renewable power isn't.
|
| Nuclear energy is expensive. Nuclear power isn't.
|
| You can't run a modern economy on renewables because you can't
| turn off society when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't
| blow.
|
| Europe is now learning this painful lesson.
| khariel wrote:
| > If you give me a lump of coal you give me power.
|
| Did you mean energy here?
| phicoh wrote:
| Typical nuclear fanboy.
|
| Nobody is running on renewables. Well, there are some
| exceptions. Countries like Norway and Sweden have enough hydro
| that they do run on renewables. But ignoring those, nobody
| does.
|
| Wind and solar pairs well with natural gas. Coming from a
| fossil fuel situation, wind and solar paired with gas have the
| big advantage that you get a reliable system, easy reduction of
| CO2 by adding more wind and solar. And it is cheap.
|
| New nuclear is not cheap (compared to Russian gas).
|
| Of course where this failed was in the gas part. Obviously,
| wind and solar need to be blamed for the lack of Russian gas.
| Same with Texas, when something goes wrong, blame renewables.
|
| The obvious problem, for both renewables and for nuclear is
| cheap fossil fuel.
|
| Expensive fossil fuel might make nuclear attractive.
|
| Expensive fossil fuel will result in a focus on storage. But
| before that, most EU countries need a lot more wind and solar
| before they can focus on storage. There is no point in focusing
| on storage if output of renewables can't keep up with demand.
| jopsen wrote:
| Won't you just need 10x capacity spread over a large area with
| good transfer connections.
|
| Maybe, a but if pumped hydro, some batteries, and power
| intensive industries running only when power is cheap?
|
| (Not that nuclear wouldn't be nice, it's just never quick fix)
| thrown_22 wrote:
| >What if we turned off society whenever the sun stopped
| shining?
|
| Sure. Hope you don't have anything important running on
| electricity, like say life support systems.
| frank_bb wrote:
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I am happy I got solar earlier this year. I thought it would be
| very expensive but we are very frugal with energy and it only was
| 7k euro to go off grid. During the day we can run anything (tons
| of sun so washing, dish washing, etc etc), during the night less
| so but we go to bed early (21:00) and get up at 5.
| danwee wrote:
| Did you have to go through a lot of bureaucracy to get the
| whole thing installed?
| tluyben2 wrote:
| No, because I am not connected to the grid. If I wanted to
| be, it's a big hassle.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Does this mean that the solar elements are not connected to
| the grid, i.e you don't send your excess back to the energy
| company's grid or does it mean that your only power is
| solar? If is the former how does that work in practice you
| have different circuits for connected to the solar stuff?
| bombcar wrote:
| This is the key. Disconnected from the grid makes
| everything simpler and cheaper.
| bArray wrote:
| Next investment for you then would be chemical batteries to
| store power.
|
| Given that you are paying in Euros, how do you expect to get
| enough solar energy over winter?
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Where I live (Portugal) I already did many winters with solar
| when renting; I had the generator on a few hours 1 day in 1
| year, the rest was enough sun to make it work.
|
| Same in Spain when I lived there.
| quonn wrote:
| How many square meters solar and how much did you get out
| of it? Did you use a battery?
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Good for you. That's the best way to go, solar on the roof and
| batteries down the basement so as to be as independent as
| possible. Wish I could do the same.
| rwmj wrote:
| Solar installers here in the UK have literal years of backlog
| and are either not returning calls or quoting installation
| dates in 2024.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Doesn't UK weather make solar a bad idea?
| perlgeek wrote:
| Ever-dropping prices for solar panels are slowly making it
| economically feasible where it used to be a bad idea.
|
| According to https://uk.renogy.com/blog/what-is-the-
| average-payback-perio... the payback time is now around
| 12-18 years, which is worse than here in Germany (I did a
| calculation for a small 600W installation in my area, and
| it came back with 8 years), but still better than the
| expected life time (20-25 years). This data is from 2021,
| maybe rising energy prices will lower the amortization
| time.
|
| In general, smaller installations have lower amortization
| times, because the higher percentage of power produced that
| you consume yourself (and you pay more for a kWh than you
| get for selling one).
| teamonkey wrote:
| Not a bad idea, just with a longer break-even point than
| many people can stomach. If you treat it as a long-term
| investment it still performs well enough with very little
| risk.
|
| It wouldn't help in the case of these energy shortages
| though, unless you're fully off-grid, as by law grid-tied
| inverters must shut off in the case of a black out, in
| order to prevent feedback to the grid.
| rwmj wrote:
| Plenty of people seem to have it.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| We keep talking about alternative energy's importance in
| reducing fossil fuel emissions. But here is another example of
| why alternative energy is so important. It provides
| diversification from shortages and geopolitical nonsense that
| can your lifestyle.
|
| If you can get solar for yourself, get it while still being
| connected to the electric grid. You will have a much more
| reliable energy system than just relying on the grid.
| fy20 wrote:
| Solar alone won't do anything to make it more reliable as the
| inverter will shut down if the grid goes down. This is a
| safety feature, as if the grid is shut down for maintenance
| you don't want inverters feeding anything in.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I agree but here you have to spend a lot more and do a lot of
| paperwork to connect to the grid; easier to just go off. But
| yes, you are right.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I'm happy for you as big fan of the nuclear reactor in the
| skies. I wonder though, what is the feasibility of energy
| storage? Is it too expensive to have enough storage till
| midnight?
| pjmlp wrote:
| And in the mist of this chaos they want everyone to switch to
| electric cars, how do they plan to charge them?
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| rat87 wrote:
| With electricity
|
| What a silly comment. The switch over to an electric cars is a
| multi year process that will take at least until 2030 just for
| new cars. The current problems won't last nearlt that long
| pjmlp wrote:
| Someone forgot the laws of physics regarding electricy
| production for the amount of cars in transit.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Petrol prices rising are part of this crisis too.
|
| Most EVs are charged over night, when grid usage is low.
| Doesn't that maximise the use of a strained system?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Most countries need their electrical heaters and cooking
| stoves as well during the night.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Yes but lights are turned off, factories are turned off,
| trains aren't running and many other things as well. And
| most people don't cook during the night.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| Right, so we just need to burn natural gas to meet that
| new demand. We can get that from ... oh.
| lostlogin wrote:
| For peak load, yes, but base load has a lot of nuclear.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| What the efficiency of electric motor vs ice since you seem
| to be physics buf?
| pjmlp wrote:
| We are discussing the efficiency of the electric power
| grid to charge all existing vehicles from 2022, assuming
| they would be all electric as of tomorrow.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Sure but they won't be tomorrow, not in 10 years. Even so
| burning crude at a power plant and powering electric
| motor should be more efficient per mile travelled than
| ice
| locallost wrote:
| I read the whole thread. At one point he goes on and on how
| France is shaky because their nuclear plants are offline caused
| by corrosion issues etc. On the very next tweet he blasts Germany
| for prematurely shutting down "the most reliable energy source
| nuclear". Well if they're reliable, why is France in this world
| of hurt right now?
|
| I agree about one thing, and that it really is a perfect storm of
| issues, and that the winter will be very rough. I hope it brings
| a needed change in a lot of ways.
|
| The part about renewables requiring trillions in investment to
| replace nuclear I didn't get at all - they're the cheapest
| possible solution. New nuclear that is needed would be even
| worse. If he thinks they're expensive, don't know what else is
| there. My guess is that renewables will continue to be a huge
| winner, especially in this crisis. Even Macron came out a couple
| days ago and said France needs to build more renewable capacity
| and ease regulations and remove road blocks. That was a huge
| shock for me.
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| > The part about renewables requiring trillions in investment
| to replace nuclear I didn't get at all - they're the cheapest
| possible solution.
|
| The problem with renewable energies in Germany is that we do
| not have (or can't get?) enough water power plants. Solar
| energy doesn't really work at all, because energy is also
| needed at night and wind energy is also not very reliable. To
| compensate for this you need even more wind turbines. The
| assumption here seems to be that these are really better for
| the climate, but I don't see that either if you have to use
| that much resources to build these to compensate for miniscule
| amounts of basic electricity load.
|
| > My guess is that renewables will continue to be a huge
| winner, especially in this crisis.
|
| Winner of what? In Germany we have thousands of thousands of
| wind turbines and still we are sliding into an energy crisis.
| Sure, some days they probably could produce 100% of the
| electricity demand, but some days they barely produce any
| electricity. The idea was to compensate with gas power plants
| ...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The idea was to build offshore wind farms, but there was a
| lot of complaining about "subsidies" from the right so the
| government effectively blocked them. Imagine if offshore wind
| had been being built by Germany (and all the other EU nations
| that fell for the same BS) at full speed since 2012.
|
| We'd have a lot more cheaper power and a lot less Government
| subsidies.
| autokad wrote:
| you have to ask yourself what 'reliable' means. Its my
| understanding that nuclear is called 'reliable' due to the
| availability of the fuel source as well as the constant
| electricity output it produces (its very stable / constant ).
|
| That speaks nothing to the 'reliability of keeping plants
| online' that you are referring to. even if the reliability
| referred to by the author was claiming they are easy to keep
| online, that doesn't except France from the need of keeping
| good maintenance of the plants.
|
| Now the 2nd part on your claim about renewables. most claims in
| output and gains in renewables include hydro electric (which is
| kind of weird since the super green crowd villainised hydro
| electric ), which is a great solution but unfortunately most of
| the best opportunities for hydro electric have already been
| exploited. wind and solar makes sense in certain situations,
| but in most it doesnt.
|
| renewables should be part of the planning as much as possible,
| but they are not in a position to help Europe in its current
| situation. Germany's decision to shut down nuclear power plants
| just after fukushima because it was the social media hip thing
| to do at the time, has been a disastrous decision.
| locallost wrote:
| The decision to wind down nuclear was made almost 10 years
| before Fukushima and it was Merkel who initially postponed
| the decision. Once Fukushima happened they figured it wasn't
| such a hot idea to have decades old plants running. So it has
| nothing to do with hip.
| arvonle wrote:
| Numerous French nuclear plants are past due date but their
| lifespans have been extended beyond their expected lifespans
| for what looks to me like political and economic reasons -
| instead of building new ones in time to handle the transition.
|
| I do not know what the intersection is with the set of reactors
| that had to be shut down. One must understand that EDF is under
| immense pressure as an underfunded public provider, as it is
| forced to comply with price regulations (out of its own pockets
| as the government owes it a lot of money that curiously fails
| to be paid back), provides electricity at a discount to other
| European countries - someone has to compensate for Germany's
| plant closures - and private providers - which do not produce
| anyhting, they buy power at a discount from EDF then resell it
| to French people at a markup et voila. EDF is also bound by law
| to buy solar energy produced by homes for a higher price than
| they end up selling it later on.
|
| Basically my argument is that this might have less to do with
| the reliability of nuclear energy and more with how the EU, the
| govt and private parties rip EDF off while leaving it with no
| option as to what to do with its aging nuclear park.
| izacus wrote:
| > Well if they're reliable, why is France in this world of hurt
| right now?
|
| This an exceedingly intellectually lazy argument which shows
| that you're either horribly biased (and never engaged with the
| reading material properly) or didn't even spend a minute
| thinking through what you're asking. It's somewhere on the
| level of "well, why is there snow in New York if global warming
| is happening HUUUUH?!".
|
| (Not to mention that the French nukes are in process of being
| started already.)
| locallost wrote:
| They're in the process of being started for months now. It's
| even mentioned in the tweets that EdF has a poor track record
| of keeping their word. How much I would know if I would only
| read the material properly.
|
| Reliability is a word and it has a meaning. With that in mind
| nothing beats renewables because the tech just works and
| they're so decentralized that a glitch of huge proportions
| would be needed to make them not work as designed. On the
| other hand a huge power plant can go out unexpectedly and
| take a massive part of the grid offline just as unexpectedly.
| That's unreliable and it's in fact what has happened this
| year.
| izacus wrote:
| >They're in the process of being started for months now
|
| Of course they are, that's how they work. 6 of them came
| online in last two weeks. But that's not what you were
| honestly implying there, is it?
|
| > Reliability is a word and it has a meaning. With that in
| mind nothing beats renewables because the tech just works
| and they're so decentralized that a glitch of huge
| proportions would be needed to make them not work as
| designed. On the other hand a huge power plant can go out
| unexpectedly and take a massive part of the grid offline
| just as unexpectedly. That's unreliable and it's in fact
| what has happened this year.
|
| Whatever meaning "reliability" has (especially in practical
| terms of you getting your power), it's really not what you
| wrote in the other sentences. Especially it's not a word
| that means "ignoring drawbacks of whichever option I like."
| zh3 wrote:
| Erm, EDF. I'm in favour of nuclear, but EDF/Hinckley Point
| are how not to do it (I think the only residential consumers
| they have left have failed to do any sort of shopping
| around/don't care about the cost - very possibly different
| for business/vested interests).
| pjerem wrote:
| That's not the whole story. EDF is a very competent company
| which have everything needed to provide cheap electricity
| to the whole country while making money.
|
| The point is (and I think it's a scandal) that EDF is
| forced, by law, to resell its nuclear electricity to its
| competitors at an under the market price.
|
| EDF is also required to offer an electricity plan with a
| law fixed price. Which is a good thing because
| historically, it allowed end users not to suffer from
| market price fluctuations.
|
| Now what is happening is that all those fake competitors
| that did resell EDF electricity cheaper than EDF offerings,
| took their margin for more than a decade and are now asking
| their customer to unsubscribe and to go back to the EDF
| fixed-by-law offer.
| mijoharas wrote:
| I don't think that's fair.
|
| If almost 40% of french nuclear is offline right now[0][1]
| then I think it's reasonable to ask questions about
| reliability.
|
| Could you explain how the position is lazy?
|
| (Note: I'm in favour of nuclear power)
|
| [0]
| https://twitter.com/BurggrabenH/status/1567971418255532035
|
| [1] Our forecast is for 59% utilisation or 315TWh based on
| EDF's guidance.
| chiph wrote:
| The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled
| maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against
| reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected to
| be operating.
|
| The argument is lazy because it's false equivalence. A
| power plant failing suddenly is not the same thing as a
| power plant being taken offline to fix a known issue.
|
| _edit:_ EDF has announced that they will be restarting
| their nuclear plants by winter. How this plays into the
| Russian gas shortage is that France also generates a lot of
| electricity off natural gas. By working to get the nuclear
| plants running by winter they won 't need to run their
| natural gas generation plants, leaving more gas to be used
| for industrial purposes & home heating.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7BlzKHfxPk
| mijoharas wrote:
| Thank you.
| brazzy wrote:
| > The French reactors were taken offline for scheduled
| maintenance and repairs. Those hours don't count against
| reliability metrics because the plants weren't expected
| to be operating.
|
| That is a lie. A total of 12 reactors are down for
| unscheduled repairs because of corrosion damage that was
| found during inspections in October 2021.
|
| Some of the others are down unscheduled because they used
| river water for cooling, which due to the hot and dry
| summer threatened the rivers' ecosystem.
| mijoharas wrote:
| If you're arguing that the French nuclear run by EDF is
| unreliable, while the German nuclear power was reliable
| I'll grant that, but that wasn't what I took from your
| comment. (It's possible I misinterpreted)
| izacus wrote:
| For starters: to compare reliability (which is a
| statistic), you need to first look at more than a single
| anecdotal time sample.
|
| This is like... highschool level stuff. (Which is also the
| reason why I have very little will to refute your points,
| because they seem to be done from either dishonesty or
| ignorance. Anyone on HN is old enough to understand why
| anecdotal single sample evidence is not a way to refute
| statistical phenomena).
|
| That is to say - even if EDF massively, critically fscked
| up this time, it has little effect to the reliability of
| nuclear power as a whole. Just like a single exploding
| windmill in Denmark doesn't change much about reliability
| of wind power.
| mijoharas wrote:
| Ok, this is ridiculous, given your position, I'm not
| going to spend long on this but:
|
| > Just like a single exploding windmill in Denmark
| doesn't change much about reliability of wind power
|
| First off, you realise France has 56 nuclear power
| stations? I'm wondering where you're getting "single
| sample" and "single windmill" from
|
| If, over a year, 40% of windmills in Denmark weren't
| producing power, it would make a hell of a lot of sense
| to question the reliability of Danish windmills.
|
| I don't know why you pulled out the straw man of saying
| the person was questioning all of nuclear power, but they
| had a very reasonable fact-based question.
|
| I'd be very happy to listen to any data or explanations
| you could bring, but frankly you don't seem to be
| discussing things in good faith right now.
| trasz wrote:
| It's sad when you look at China building 20 new reactors at the
| moment and then comparing to what we have in EU.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| While simultaneously investing billions in EU wind-farms [0]
|
| [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/chinese-wind-farm-
| investment...
| iza wrote:
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1567929340737863680.html
| maCDzP wrote:
| As a Swede that just went though an election with electricity
| prices being discussed this is very interesting. Prices in Sweden
| are at an all time high.
|
| I don't remember this analysis being talked about. The problem
| was cast mostly as a domestic issue - that's my take at least.
|
| In hindsight I think it was only the left that had a solution
| that maybe would address this for Sweden at least. They wanted to
| have domestic and EU-pricing.
|
| Then the prices for electricity in EU would become so high that
| Italy would be forced to act?
| Gud wrote:
| The left created this mess to begin with. They shut down
| multiple functioning nuclear power plants in the south of
| Sweden where the energy is needed the most.
| philjohn wrote:
| Always be wary a political party promising solutions to
| situations outside their control ...
| jopsen wrote:
| > They wanted to have domestic and EU-pricing.
|
| But would it be legal? That kind of protectionism would
| definitely run counter to the ideals if the EU common market.
|
| It's hard to know what EU countries might do, but during covid
| the EU avoided protectionism when it came to vaccines.
|
| Of course, it could be different this time.
| maCDzP wrote:
| Good question - I agree it would run counter the common
| market.
|
| If I remember correctly that was one of the main arguments
| against the left's solution. The counter argument was that
| other countries are already doing this or planning on doing
| it. I believe some parties in Italy has talked about putting
| a price cap on electricity and gas. But the same applies to
| them - is it legal?
|
| It doesn't create good incentives when Sweden exports
| electricity to Italy (and others of course) that the Italian
| government would step in and put a price cap. I guess the
| Italian government will spot the difference - though lending
| from the EU?
|
| Same would would apply for the left in Sweden I guess.
| Setting a domestic price cap and market price on exports.
|
| What a mess.
| jopsen wrote:
| Also, if there really is s scarcity of electricity, then
| every country subsidizing it won't help.
|
| That said, to some extend it might just be more expensive
| LNG that dictates the price -- maybe there is sufficient
| electricity at a high price point.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > It's hard to know what EU countries might do, but during
| covid the EU avoided protectionism when it came to vaccines.
|
| There was A LOT of backstabbing in the beginning regarding
| medical supplies. Landlocked countries got screwed in
| transit. Even Red Cross aid was confiscated.
|
| Thankfully the panic only lasted about one two weeks or
| something.
| jopsen wrote:
| Yeah, collaboration around covid was perhaps a bit easier
| to force, because no country could do a vaccine on its own
| (including production, packaging, etc).
|
| But in this case Sweden and Norway probably could do
| electricity without supplies from the European grid. But
| they might not want to be as unreliable partners as Russia
| turned out to be...
|
| If you void contracts and begin backstabbing when things
| get hard, people won't trust you in the future.
| rasz wrote:
| Its the other way around. countries relying on gas for
| electricity like Italy are the source of EU problem right now.
| troon-lover wrote:
| emptyfile wrote:
| Looks important, if only it weren't written in a bunch of twitter
| posts with GIFs and reaction pics thrown in every paragraph, I
| might even read it then.
|
| Seriously, looks like a 14 year old wrote it. I'm not wasting
| even 5min to parse it.
| sschueller wrote:
| Here is what Switzerland is doing at the moment to prevent the
| worst case which would be rolling black outs.
|
| They are planning for the worst case so they don't get caught
| with their pants down. This includes:
|
| - Currently trying to fill as many reservoirs as possible
|
| - Securing gas in foreign reservoirs.
|
| - Plan for emergency gas plants that can be operational by
| January/February, the time Switzerland has the least electricity
| available.
|
| - Legal framework to deal with energy shortage such as deciding
| which industry is considered essential and what kind of
| compensation would be provided for those that get shut off if it
| gets to this.
|
| - The SBB is calculating how much electricity they can save by
| reducing trains and also piping power into homes instead of
| trains. From what I heard, current calculations show reducing
| service by 30% only saves around 10% electricity.
|
| They also put out a plan which starts with asking people to use
| less electricity to worst case which would be planned 4 hour
| rolling blackouts.
|
| Peoples' homes not getting electricity will be the last resort
| and unlikely as large industries will be asked first to stop
| producing and take the government money.
|
| Switzerland produces more electricity per year than it needs. The
| issue is that the amounts don't line up so they export excess and
| import when they don't have enough.
| dafrie wrote:
| Additionally there are preparations to temporarily suspend
| noise/pollution legislation that forbids backup power
| generators to run for more than 50 hours a year [0]. While the
| current idea is to only exempt sites (around 300 sites, 250 MW
| installed capacity) that are already used by SwissGrid for
| Ancillary Services [1], there is political pressure to
| temporarily include all sites with installed backup power
| generators (> 4 GW).
|
| If even a fraction of this installed capacity would run in
| times of shortages, this should further reduce demand without
| causing disruption on industrial production or even having to
| schedule rolling blackouts.
|
| [0] (German) https://www.srf.ch/news/wirtschaft/drohende-
| energiekrise-str...
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_services_(electric_p...
| sva_ wrote:
| > They also put out a plan which starts with asking people to
| use less electricity to worst case which would be planned 4
| hour rolling blackouts.
|
| Time to buy some powerbanks
| bitL wrote:
| Any particular one to recommend?
| deepserket wrote:
| For blackouts that last less than a day one or two 10Ah+
| power banks with a flashlight built-in should be enough.
|
| Remember to dress well so you won't freeze
| Sharlin wrote:
| An EV is a pretty good powerbank if one needs a car anyway.
| bitL wrote:
| That's a bit too steep just for a powerbank ;-)
| rightbyte wrote:
| If you have a gasoline car you can charge in that from
| the starter battery.
|
| A starter battery is about 1kWh.
|
| Or just keep a lead acid battery around charged up and
| connect a ciggarette lighter socket to it.
| bitL wrote:
| I was specifically curious about dedicated powerbanks.
| This discussion got sidetracked to cars.
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder if it is cost effective going forward to install _two_
| meters and panels on every house with one being "essential" and
| the other being "intermittent" so the power company has the
| option of blacking out the intermittent boxes only. I'd rather
| have all my computers, lights, etc shut down than my whole
| house.
| cypress66 wrote:
| Doing that seems insane instead of just fixing the root
| problem.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| You might be better off capping the power for each home and
| letting their occupants decide what is essential or not.
| bombcar wrote:
| People in general are idiots and would freeze to death at
| the end of the month just as they roll to credit when the
| paycheck dries up.
|
| You'd have to do it on a day to day basis or hourly. That
| could actually work - use too much power in an hour or day
| and it shuts off for awhile.
| bittercynic wrote:
| GP suggests capping power, not energy, which avoids this
| scenario.
| bombcar wrote:
| Do you mean limiting the size of the service to a house?
| Because unless you have massive batteries for
| intermittent loads that would prohibit dryers and ovens
| from being electric.
| bittercynic wrote:
| If we're going to the effort of having dual-service to
| each home, we could have the "essentials" service of 500W
| or something that we'd try to make very reliable, to
| operate the fridge, medical equipment, communications, or
| whatever the residents deemed essential. Then the other,
| regular service could still have whatever capacity was
| already there, but would be subject to intermittent
| blackouts as necessary to keep everyone's essentials on.
|
| This would require some additional infrastructure, but
| might be worth it if the blackouts are going to be too
| frequent.
| elric wrote:
| So your freezer shuts down when your toaster is on? A hard
| cap that's low enough to make a difference seems like a bad
| idea, there are many devices which shouldn't be cut off
| suddenly. And that's ignoring things like medical devices.
|
| Of course there's already a hard cap (usually ~9kW over
| here), but I suspect most people never reach it.
|
| There are plans in Belgium to charged based on peak power
| (something silly like "max power used in any 15 minute
| period"), which would drive up the cost for the average
| consumer without reducing demand (as people tend not to
| have much choice in when they use their most power hungry
| appliances).
| rightbyte wrote:
| > So your freezer shuts down when your toaster is on?
|
| That is actually not a bad idea. Would only decrease
| power though, not energy consumption.
|
| (Assuming the freezer is built to read the power meter
| and decide when to not run the compressor).
| bombcar wrote:
| US houses can draw 166 KW (or half that if older 100amp
| service) but you'd probably be raided for running a grow
| op.
| elric wrote:
| I think you've got your units mixed up. 100A @ 120V =
| 12kW. Assuming the newer homes are 200A, that would be
| 24kW. 166kW seems ... unreasonable, especially over 120V,
| that's like 1400A. Toasty.
| kennend3 wrote:
| As the other person posted, you are mistaken.
|
| Houses in north America are fed with two 120V "legs" and
| so the 100A is actually at 240V.
| bombcar wrote:
| Ah I found 200 amps at 220 threephase which is still a
| bit more than most houses.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Your math was still off, 200 amps at 220v three-phase is
| ~76.2 kW.
|
| 200*220*sqrt(3)=76210 watts
| ars wrote:
| US homes are measured at 240 volts. 100 amp would be on
| each of the 120v legs.
|
| High power US home is 200 amp times 240 volts. More
| typical homes are 100 amp or 150 amp.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I think this is happening. Except, instead of two separate
| meters they are instead installing "smart meters" which can
| do this and much more.
| bitschubser_ wrote:
| isn't it much "easier" to implement some kind of progressive
| price on energy? first 1000kw/h are "cheaper" than market
| (per person in household), next 500kw/h double the price,
| next 500kw/h doubles again etc... For things like heatpumps
| you usually have an extra meter with special day/night tarifs
| (in germany), the rest is metered as general consumption. I
| always wonder through how much energy my peers burn, we have
| a 2 person household with 2 e-bikes which are used regulary +
| both in home office (heating is gas) and "just" need 1200kw/h
| pA (and our appliances are not all A++)
| cperciva wrote:
| BC does that for electricity, but there's talk of getting
| rid of it -- because it punishes people for using electric
| cars and heat pumps.
|
| Great for reducing electricity consumption; not great for
| reducing _total energy usage_.
| nicoburns wrote:
| You could design a pricing scheme that takes this into
| account:
|
| - Make it for all energy use, not just electricity
|
| - Give an extra allowance for electric car owners
| rdtwo wrote:
| I think that already exists. You get some base amount with
| hookup fee and the rest you pay extra for
| evandijk70 wrote:
| Something like that is currently proposed in the
| Netherlands, and will probably be implemented January 1st.
| Electricity and gas use up to the consumption of the
| average Dutch household (1100 m3 and 2200 kWh of the top of
| my head) will be cheaper than market.
| bombcar wrote:
| Progressive pricing exists for commercial users but in
| general has been too complicated for home users.
| bitschubser_ wrote:
| just out of curiosity because I have no clue :D why is it
| regarded as complicated? For waste you already have a
| basic tarif + extra for every member in the household,
| and the "progression" is that you have to buy really
| expensive "waste bags" if you produce more waste
| bombcar wrote:
| Use more pay more is pretty simple and implemented - and
| the lowest tiers are really cheap.
|
| The complicated one is daily tiers - when power is more
| or less expensive at different times.
| bitschubser_ wrote:
| are daily tiers and dynamic pricing really needed for
| consumers, shoudn't it even out on the long term? Until
| recently it worked quite well for a energy supplier to
| supply me with a fixed rate for a year and still making
| profit (when I take a look at their yearly earnings
| report, I think I also subsidized heavy users with my low
| usage :D). over a year the price should average out quite
| nicely when I look at the energy mix in germany and the
| cost. The only "problem" we currently have is the merit
| order principle and the pegging of the (haywire) gas
| price to the energy price which makes calculations for
| suppliers difficult (and the absence of building
| renewable, and the maintenance and shutoffs of nuclear
| :D). Aside from that consumption is quite foreseeable and
| production also, so daily rates should not matter that
| much? I think paying by the hour/daily makes things just
| more complicated, I actually don't really want to time my
| laundry cooking with future prices on an hour/daily base
| :D
| bitschubser_ wrote:
| yeahh I see or just preload the washing machine and
| trigger it if the spupply is high .. but that means a lot
| of interconnected appliances.
|
| I'm also planning to add one or two small 800Wp PV
| systems "Balkonsolar" to our flat (we have plenty of
| space on the south facing side) this will also involves
| pre planning for energy intensive stuff including a
| planned AC in the summer... let's see how this works out
| :)
| bombcar wrote:
| The goal with it is to encourage people to move load to
| coincide with demand. But it's complicated and changes -
| during solar peaks the best time to do laundry may be
| midday but durning wind peaks that could be the middle of
| the night.
|
| The solution is power storage either at a grid level or
| at a home level where the information is available to the
| smart batteries. And/or so much excess solar and wind
| that we just don't care.
| ryanhuff wrote:
| My utility (SCE in the US) has traditionally had
| consumption based progressive tiered pricing for years
| (monthly basis). Recently, they have been pushing
| consumers to time of use pricing though (higher rates at
| peak time of peak consumption). So, consumers can adapt.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I think we need to figure out how to de-complicate
| variable rates for residential customers. Forcing people
| to pay what electricity actually costs (ideally, in real-
| time) is a good way to make your demand-side much more
| responsive.
|
| During the Texas winter crisis, virtually no residential
| customers saw a financial incentive to wind down power
| usage. Only those crazies on Griddy, et. al. were
| impacted.
| gonzo wrote:
| During: true.
|
| But most Texas utility customers now pay a surcharge
| every month to pay off the accumulated debt of that
| crisis.
|
| https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2022/02/11/how-
| much...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Forcing people to pay what electricity actually costs
| (ideally, in real-time) is a good way to make your
| demand-side much more responsive._
|
| That's only a valid strategy if your customers _can_ be
| more responsive, but in a freak cold snap where most
| customers are running heaters at 100% to keep their homes
| habitable, there 's little they can go to reduce demand.
|
| Many people have purchased generators after that crisis,
| but telling (and maybe subsidizing) millions of people to
| buy a generator and stockpile fuel because the grid can't
| handle cold weather is not good energy policy.
|
| It'd be better if regulators required demand-response
| automation that would let them intelligently scale back
| demand of high-energy appliances before the grid reaches
| critical levels without heavy-handed rolling blackouts.
| bombcar wrote:
| Both in Texas and California recently lots of people
| voluntarily cut back but it'd be nice to reflect that in
| the billing in some way. The Griddy way may have been too
| extreme but encouraging conservation of energy is a
| generally good idea (imagine things like rebating permit
| fees based on sliding scale of how much you "beat code"
| on a blower door and insulation test).
| ab_testing wrote:
| It is actually the opposite. In California, police attack
| your home if you are thrifty and use less energy.
| Apparently you are placed on some sort of suspicious list
| and accused of stealing power.
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/video/senior-asian-couple-
| california-g....
| playingalong wrote:
| As a response the houses will be artifficially split into
| two. What counts as a household is not that deterministic.
| Someone wrote:
| Firstly, how would you keep consumers honest about what's
| essential?
|
| Secondly, I think "essential" will depend on the duration of
| the blackout. For a blackout of a few hours, keeping WiFi
| running so that work from home can continue probably is more
| essential than heating a water boiler. If the blackout takes
| a few days, that may change.
| bombcar wrote:
| There will always be some cheaters and "lifehack - do this
| dangerous wiring and keep the wifi on" but in general
| people leave things alone.
|
| We already have interconnect devices for A/C and water
| heating and car charging in some locations.
| toast0 wrote:
| Charge higher rates for essential. Offer rebates for
| certain users with life safety requirements for
| uninterrupted power.
| kennend3 wrote:
| > Charge higher rates for essential.
|
| This makes ZERO sense..
|
| I live in a cold climate.. Our furnace is "essential" to
| prevent my family and i from freezing to death. Under
| your plan we should pay more for this?
|
| And those who cant afford it? Let me guess, government
| rebates, making a complex program even more complex?
|
| Any time your solution requires "rebates".. it is flawed
| from the start.
| Someone wrote:
| You can also write "Charge higher rates for essential" as
| "Offer cheaper electricity that has lower quality of
| service guarantees".
|
| If seen that way, you wouldn't pay more; you would have
| to he choice to get cheaper electricity.
|
| I foresee high demand for electronics that seamlessly
| switch from the lower quality of service feed to the
| 'essential' one when that cheaper feed stops working,
| though.
| toast0 wrote:
| You could have tarrif rules that the essential meter
| charges at the regular rate if the regular meter is
| energized, or near the regular rate. That would have the
| benefit of letting the power utility accurately forecast
| the essential load, and would disincentivize the transfer
| switches.
| toast0 wrote:
| It would make sense to have say your stage 1 heating that
| could keep your house livable but rather cold on
| essential, and your stage 2 heating which made things
| comfortable on the less available feed. I'd also put
| refrigerators and minimal lighting on essential.
|
| The alternative as presented was some sort of compliance
| program hoping people wouldn't just run everything off
| the 'essential' feed regardless of need, or rolling
| blackouts as currently practiced.
|
| It seems you agree that 'essential' loads have much more
| value to you and others, but you're not willing to pay
| the value?
| derefr wrote:
| > It seems you agree that 'essential' loads have much
| more value to you and others, but you're not willing to
| pay the value?
|
| In a similar sense that I'm not willing to pay more for
| "essential" food than for luxury food; or in the same
| sense that it seems unfair to have to pay for life-saving
| medical treatments.
|
| It is both unethical and pointless to exploit _inelastic
| demand_ -- the whole meaning of the word "inelastic"
| being that changing the price of it won't incentivize
| people to use any more/less of it.
|
| Inelastic demand should, at the very least, be
| _subsidized_. This is why public healthcare exists; why
| food stamps exist; etc. But better yet, inelastic demand
| -- because it is so _predictable_ -- should be optimized
| heavily for by suppliers (for power plants, this is
| "building out base-load capacity") such that economies of
| scale enable the supply for inelastic demand to be
| satisfied with lower cost than the supply for elastic
| demand.
| toast0 wrote:
| The point is not to exploit inelastic demand, but to
| _separate_ inelastic demand from elastic demand when
| there isn 't enough supply to fit both needs.
|
| With food, it's possible to manage supply through
| stockpiling. With electricity, storage is tricky, so when
| there's a change to supply, demand has to be changed to
| match. You can do that with blackouts or economics. Many
| large customers have contracts where they pay a lower
| rate in exchange for disconnecting their load when needed
| to reduce demand. Anything essential would be on another
| meter that has a higher rate.
|
| Why is it a problem to apply the same principle to
| residential connections?
|
| Of course, in my area, most of my utility outages are a
| result of interrupted lines and not supply issues, both
| essential and non-essential would be equally disrupted.
| And, it's not feasible to switch a significant number of
| residences to a two-meter system in any reasonable amount
| of time, so this is firmly in the thought expirement
| category.
| kennend3 wrote:
| > It is both unethical and pointless to exploit inelastic
| demand
|
| WELL PUT.. the logic on this debate is astonishly bad..
|
| "Charge more for essential services" just sounds terrible
| and you are correct, inelastic demand needs to be
| affordable, and subsidized if it is NOT affordable.
|
| i dont understand how someone would advocate that
| "essential services has higher value to me and should
| cost more".
|
| Essential services like heating my home does not have a
| higher value, it is an absolutely essential service to
| prevent death from cold temperatures..
|
| This person should try living in -24C without heat and
| see if it changes their views.
| toast0 wrote:
| If I lived in -24C, it would be extremely valuable for me
| to have heat.
|
| As it is, I live in a climate that does dip below 0C from
| time to time, and having access to heat is important, so
| I have a backup generator for the house, and another for
| the well, because water is important too. When I use
| them, just the energy cost is much higher than utility
| power, so I don't use them when utility power is
| available. There's capital cost and operational costs to
| pay too. Many people who live around me don't have
| generators, so they have to hope outages won't be too
| long, or that they can make it to a warming center ---
| but outages are often coincident with locally heavy
| snowfall and our roads are always steep, so that makes it
| difficult to travel even short distances to get to
| warmth.
|
| In my area, the issue isn't rolling blackouts, it's
| usually lines broken due to falling trees. Paying more
| for uninterupted utilities wouldn't fix that, but if it
| were rolling blackouts, I would certainly prefer to pay
| more for utility power for essential loads rather than
| paying more for local generation for essential loads.
| kennend3 wrote:
| > It seems you agree that 'essential' loads have much
| more value to you and others, but you're not willing to
| pay the value?
|
| what does taking what i wrote, then reworking the
| sentence to suit your purpose serve?
|
| I did not agree that essential loads have more "value"...
| you did.
|
| If you think that heating your home is not essential,
| come by in the winter and i can put a tent in the back
| yard for you. It reaches as low as -24C, but i'm sure you
| will be fine.
|
| If you think that people should be forced to pay more to
| heat their homes.. you are mistaken. No one should have
| to choose between food and heat and any program
| structured such that "essential costs more" will NEVER
| work.
|
| I said that it is UNFAIR to charge more for essential
| loads, and that if a program depends on "rebates" it is
| flawed.
|
| There are many other alternative solutions, such as what
| we have here via "time of use" billing that is also
| seasonally adjusted.
|
| this "pay more for essential services" logic is severely
| flawed, much as you twisting my words to suit your
| purpose was.
|
| the persons below really made the point when they wrote
| "It is both unethical and pointless to exploit inelastic
| demand "
|
| what you are proposing is unethical...
| Someone wrote:
| Sounds like a good idea, but would, IMO, split less along
| the essential/non-essential line than along the richer-
| poorer line.
|
| Richer people likely also would counter this with battery
| or diesel powered backup power (already happens a lot in
| countries that have irregular blackouts). If they use
| batteries, their power usage would even go up dues to
| losses in the charge/discharge cycle.
| sp332 wrote:
| Well, threaten them with blackouts if they dont cut enough
| usage.
| kennend3 wrote:
| Here (Ontario) we have "time of use" billing
| https://www.oeb.ca/consumer-information-and-
| protection/elect...
|
| The idea is to move "load" from peaks to avoid shortages by
| charging more to use power during peaks.
|
| The idea of "priority customers" has a long standing
| principle. "High usage" customers often agree to be the first
| to be cut in return for discounts.
|
| Targeting "residential customers" in this way is NOT
| effective as it takes a LOT of houses to equal the amount of
| power "commercial/industrial" users consume.
|
| Time of use billing is probably the better option.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Something similar was done in Canada about 40 years ago with
| the high-usage lights installed in every home (usually next
| to the washer/dryer).
|
| If the light was on, people paid significantly more. It was
| very very effective at reducing peak consumption.
| hrpnk wrote:
| This is great, because it shows/teaches people what high-
| usage is. So far, I've seen very little guidance and advice
| to citizens on how exactly they can contribute to lower
| energy usage. Only businesses say they will stop production
| or change opening times. Is this a missed opportunity?
| Gigachad wrote:
| These days we have the tech to make this really smooth.
| Have a phone app with live prices, and integrate with iot
| makers so things like washing machines and dish washers
| can be set to trigger on the cheapest times.
|
| Have houses automatically heat up earlier in the morning
| before people start waking up and consuming more power
| wizofaus wrote:
| > because it shows/teaches people what high-usage is.
|
| Consumer awareness of what appliances use the most power
| should really be a lot higher. It's actually pretty
| simple too - devices that generate a lot of heat are the
| ones consuming a lot of energy. That includes devices
| whose purpose may be to keep things cool - your fridge
| and A/C still generate significant waste heat even in the
| latter case it's vented externally. A rare exception
| would be a car-battery charger, which can obviously draw
| significant power but the heat is generated later when
| the power is drawn from the battery and in a dissipated
| fashion that's hard to detect directly but is still
| significant.
| kennend3 wrote:
| This doesnt make sense, at least not for Ontario.
|
| Prior to "Time of use" billing (and having to upgrade all
| our meters in like 2016) i dont see how this was possible.
|
| The old meters simply measured how much power was used,
| they had no idea of WHEN it was used.
|
| The electric company would go house to house and "read the
| meter" once a month and report this back to billing. Based
| on your usage a bill would be produced and sent to you.
|
| How/when would a "high usage light" come into play?
|
| I grew up in a house which was over 40 years old, there was
| no "high-usage" lights near the waster/dryer. Mostly
| because homes built back then had the waster/dryer in the
| basement and any "usage lights" would be ineffective.
| teraflop wrote:
| It's called a multiple-tariff meter. Of course it's
| easier to implement with modern electronics, but there's
| no reason you can't design an electromechanical meter
| device that has two different mechanisms to tally up
| "peak" and "off-peak" usage. I just did a quick Google
| search and found patents dating back to the 1970s.
| kennend3 wrote:
| I think you intentionally overlooked my point.
|
| I wasn't debating if these meters exist or not, it was
| that they were never used in Ontario.
|
| Continuing your logic, did Canada ever use these
| "multiple-tariff" meters? If they did, what was the point
| of the light the OP mentioned?
| teraflop wrote:
| I certainly didn't _intentionally_ overlook anything. I
| took your "doesn't make sense" to mean that you were
| questioning the _possibility_ of an "old" meter
| accounting for different electricity rates at different
| times. Since it seems that's not what you meant, I
| apologize for misunderstanding you.
| tom_ wrote:
| Economy 7 in the UK switches meters based on time of day:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_7
| fy20 wrote:
| ...which is triggered by a radio signal.
| tom_ wrote:
| Indeed! More secure that way than trying to do it
| locally, probably, and now BST is somebody else's
| problem.
|
| But since it's been around since the late 70s, clearly
| you can do this without needing too much advanced tech -
| which is what I interpreted as being the perceived
| problem. (Perhaps incorrectly, but it looks like I wasn't
| the only one...)
| fy20 wrote:
| How exactly will rolling blackouts work when the grid spans
| many countries? What's to stop Germany saying they will pay
| more to keep some industry running if Poland turns off
| electricity to some homes?
| trebligdivad wrote:
| The 'Securing gas in foreign reservoirs' is going to get messy
| for everyone, all the countries are doing this, but when
| everyone is short of it (if there's a very cold winter with low
| wind) - what's going to happen? Some of those 'secure gas'
| isn't going to deliver.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| Well, that's the trillion dollar question no one has the
| answer to.
|
| But politicians say it's going to be ok. So you know, we're
| probably screwed.
| sschueller wrote:
| The issue here is that Switzerland does not have any large
| gas storage in its borders and has for a while been paying
| other countries for storage. They need to make sure that gas
| still belongs to Switzerland when it comes down to the wire.
| thefz wrote:
| To nitpick, Switzerland is not part of Europe.
| nairboon wrote:
| It isn't? I didn't realized that we've moved...
| bitL wrote:
| News for hackers...
| nix23 wrote:
| You can thank CERN for that and the mirror-black-hole they
| created ;)
| sschueller wrote:
| I guess we are the hole in the "Swiss Cheese" or for non-
| Americans; Emmentaler that is Europe.
| nix23 wrote:
| Spanish cheese has much more holes...but smaller ;)
| Sin2x wrote:
| EU does not equal Europe.
| panick21_ wrote:
| The saddest vote (outside of immigration) in Swiss history is
| our complete destruction of nuclear energy in terms of both
| research and production. Instead of building new reactors we
| have committed to ... something. I only hope we can overturn
| this complete idiocy and start to build new reactors.
|
| Having been a fan of this for so long this is just sad and
| pathetic that we now have to consider things like rolling
| blackouts.
|
| That this is a thing in Europe in general is sad.
| kennend3 wrote:
| As someone who is also "pro-nuclear" it is upsetting to see
| this take place.
|
| The "anti-nuclear" camp has won, but based on what sort of
| logical argument? Fear? what about Chernobyl?
|
| It is one thing to be "anti-nuclear" but they failed to
| provide alternatives. "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to
| replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of
| land.
|
| Now millions face rolling blackouts and energy shortages when
| nuclear could have been providing clean energy. I live within
| 8KM of a nuclear plant which has been running accident free
| 24x7 since 1971.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of
| nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land.
|
| Well, let's see. Wind uses negligible land if incorporated
| onto farms, so I'll assume it's all solar.
|
| Nuclear capacity factor (fraction of the time it's
| operating): 0.9, call it 100%.
|
| PV capacity factor 0.2
|
| PV nameplate panel production per square metre 200W
|
| PV land coverage fraction (access paths beside PV panels
| take up space) 0.5
|
| Total land needed for PV to deliver equivalent power:
|
| 3 500 000 000 / (200 * 0.2 * 0.5) = 175 000 000 m^2 = 175
| km^2.
|
| Switzerland's population is 8.5M. Assuming it is 80%
| urbanised and 20 m^2 per person in cities (less than in
| Dhaka, 8.9M / 306 km^2): then Switzerland's cities take up
| 136 km^2. In reality, probably several times this figure.
|
| So the land area is probably less than Switzerland's
| cities.
|
| If Switzerland wished to accelerate the development of two-
| layer PV cells, increasing production per area by 50%, then
| the bulk of the 3.5GW could be provided by rooftop solar in
| cities.
|
| In reality a mix of wind and PV would be used. Wind is
| highly compatible with pastoral farming, leaving 90% or
| more of the land area it "occupies" free for grazing.
|
| The real challenge at present would be sourcing enough
| storage for the daily usage cycle.
|
| Now, damage. Covering land with inert PV panels does indeed
| change the soil ecology, but not irremediably. Remove the
| panels, and the soil would be back to normal inside a
| decade. Contrast with coal mines and ash piles, and uranium
| mines. And, as above, the PV could all be on rooftops,
| which have already damaged the land. Get rid of the
| buildings!
|
| TLDR: the "LOT of land" is not much, really, and the damage
| is minimal.
| glenstein wrote:
| TY for explaining this. I would not have made the point
| as well as you have, but the "solar + wind is inefficient
| use of land" argument is an old debunked talking point
| that has been around for decades.
|
| Like you say, wind can be co-located on farms or other
| areas that are not otherwise economically useful, with
| minimal environmental obstruction. Something on the order
| of 99.99% of the acreage occupied by windmills can
| continue to be used for other purposes. Solar panels can
| also be efficiently and thoughtfully located.
|
| Of course, they can also be located poorly as well but
| it's not something that's like definitionally baked into
| the technology, it's a matter of having good policy about
| siting.
| rasz wrote:
| The role of Russian-funded environmental organisations in
| shaping EU climate policy https://www.europarl.europa.eu/do
| ceo/document/P-9-2022-00127...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Dramatic Question.
|
| Boring but sensible answer:
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00
| 127...
|
| > Russia is one of the world's biggest producers of oil,
| gas and coal. Continuous reliance on fossil fuels and
| delays to clean energy transition benefit Russia.
|
| > Following on from this the Commission has put forward
| an additional proposal to speed up transition to clean
| energy sources by amending the directives on the Energy
| Performance of Buildings, Energy Efficiency and Renewable
| Energy[3].
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Simply cost. If the plants started in the early 2000s would
| have been delivered on time and budget they would be a huge
| part of the transition today.
|
| Now nuclear costs 3-5x more compared to renewables and is
| simply not relevant.
|
| > "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of
| nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land.
|
| If land use is what you measure impact based on a much
| better target is the beef industry.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore
| moonchrome wrote:
| >Now nuclear costs 3-5x more and is simply not relevant.
|
| Compared to what ? Energy prices have jumped 2-3x in some
| places so far, and it's not even winter yet. Comparing
| renewable prices as averages or whatever is fine if you
| like blackouts ?
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Then it's even better to get 3-5x the effect per invested
| dollar.
| moonchrome wrote:
| Yes - amazing - the reason prices are spiking is because
| supply is unstable and unable to support demand - and
| will be even more unstable in winter. Great for people
| selling electricity from renewables (although EU is
| capping their profit for 'fairness') but sucks for
| consumers.
| belorn wrote:
| I can easily earn a huge profit by trade 3-5x energy at
| one point in time, to get 1x energy at an other.
|
| As an example, in my zone, if someone provided 1x energy
| at 7pm, and I repaid that by providing 3x of that energy
| at 3am, I would still earn a profit of about 25%.
|
| The price prognosis for tonight is even lower, so I could
| trade 1x for 6x and still make a nice profit from the
| price difference.
| kennend3 wrote:
| This is the CORE of the energy debate..
|
| People throw out whatever nonsense they like to support
| their position.
|
| "Nuclear costs 3-5x" and as you point out, compared to
| what?
|
| The cost of sitting around for 20 years debating this and
| not taking any action at all has lead to much worse
| problems - power shortages.
|
| These "anti-nuclear" types fail to apply logic to their
| debate.
|
| I asked how much power is produced by solar during the
| long winter months, i suspect they will not respond as it
| is against their view - solar is NOT viable in cold-
| weather climates. You need a reliable "base" system and
| nuclear is very well suited for this. Our plants (CANDU)
| can be refuelled while producing near-full power greatly
| reducing the need to shut them down.
|
| The reason the temperatures fall below zero during the
| winter where i live is obvious.. The energy we receive
| from the sun has been greatly reduced.
|
| How would solar power address the reduction in available
| solar energy, and the increased demand for energy for
| heating?
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Because no one proposes solar in the north European
| winter. It's all about the geographically decoupled off
| shore wind.
|
| For the cost see for example:
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
| kennend3 wrote:
| I assume you find the "subsidized wind" prices
| attractive? Who pays the subsidies?
| ideamotor wrote:
| Maybe google some actual research papers on this and
| other energy policy questions? But what do I know.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Surely the main issue with winter in more northern
| regions is the significantly reduced period of the day
| for which any solar-generation is even possible. During
| the daylight hours there's still more than enough total
| insolation to heat the small amount of air we need to
| inside our houses, but you obviously need some form of
| storage (or incredibly good insulation, arguably a form
| of storage too) to ensure buildings can remain a
| comfortable temperature throughout the day and night.
| From a purely technical feasibility point of view,
| there's always sufficient insolation somewhere/somewhen
| to provide all our energy needs, but whether it's
| practical or economical compared to alternatives such as
| nuclear is worth doing the sums on.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >solar is NOT viable in cold-weather climates
|
| I agree with a lot of what you say, but also don't fall
| into the trap of what you are accusing others of doing.
|
| In places like Germany, Wind and solar actually counter-
| balance each other very well. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Seasonal-cycle-
| of-the-ca...
| kennend3 wrote:
| what*a*bout*ism /,(h)w@d@'boudiz@m/ noun BRITISH the
| technique or practice of responding to an accusation or
| difficult question by making a counteraccusation or
| raising a different issue.
|
| what does "beef" have to do with converting land to wind
| farms?
|
| perhaps you could respond back with how solar panels are
| not actually very environmentally friendly? They produce
| a lot of toxic chemicals to manufacture.
|
| Tell us, to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power, how many
| acres of land must be converted to wind/solar? what is
| the environmental/social impact of doing this?
|
| How much power is produced in a cold / dark winter via
| solar/wind vs nuclear.
| wizofaus wrote:
| There's plenty of studies done comparing the footprint of
| nuclear to solar/wind, generally they show they're more
| or less equivalent, depending on what you measure and
| various assumptions built into the study - at least one
| IPCC study showed nuclear could have a measurably (up to
| 4x!) lower carbon footprint than solar. At any rate
| there's certainly no real reason to object to nuclear on
| environmental grounds (but on economical grounds,
| terrorism risk, plutonium proliferation, etc., sure,
| there are downsides that don't really exist with
| renewables).
| deevolution wrote:
| > "Now nuclear costs 3-5x more compared to renewables and
| is simply not relevant."
|
| We're seeing the hidden cost of renewable energy now,
| aren't we? Cheap because it's supplemented with natural
| gas to provide base load. If the politicians actually
| cared about the climate, they would be adamant about
| supplementing with nuclear, which is far far more energy
| dense.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1162/
| derefr wrote:
| A bit of Googling suggests that Switzerland doesn't
| _have_ a beef industry. Steak costs more in Switzerland
| than pretty much anywhere else in the world, as it has to
| be imported (no local industry), and the tariffs on it
| are also very high.
|
| Of course, they have cows, for milk, for the cheese
| industry that they do have. But raising dairy cattle has
| only a fraction of the impact that beef cattle do (as
| you're not constantly slaughtering them and feeding up
| new ones.)
| yakak wrote:
| Just over 80% of beef consumed in Switzerland is produced
| in Switzerland.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Here's what rich countries are doing in general: outbidding
| pour countries for the limited amount of resources available in
| the short term.
|
| I lived in Switzerland and of course they are doing great, but
| Swiss people won't be the ones freezing to death in winter.
|
| Also the amount of LPG redirected from India and Pakistan to
| Europe will have a huge effect on those countries.
|
| In Hungary the country is trying to get back to wood burning
| and lignite (the worst type of coal), which will increase air
| pollution enourmously, but I believe it will the worst winter
| there since I was born (40 years ago).
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Here's what rich countries are doing in general:
| outbidding pour countries for the limited amount of resources
| available in the short term._
|
| Not just energy, but food, vaccines, medical supplies,
| consumer products, etc. This has always been the case but now
| it's at the point where third world countries will probably
| have major civil unrest and emigration due to the shortages
| of food and energy they will face from being outbid by Europe
| and other rich countries during this shortage.
|
| Europeans can resort to going on fewer and less expensive
| vacations to compensate for the increased prices of energy,
| food, game consoles and GPUs, but I doubt anyone here will
| actually starve or freeze to death, while that may be an
| actual reality for some people in some developing nations.
| jotm wrote:
| EU food is (was?) flooding markets all around it due to
| being cheaper and higher quality _even after_ import taxes
| /customs duty.
|
| Should've bought local, but as someone from a poor country
| neighbouring the EU - fuck that, learn to make quality or
| you deserve to go under. I'm not paying 2.5x the price for
| local atrocious quality.
|
| And farmers saying lack of rain will ruin them can Google
| "artificial irrigation" on their gigabit fiber and
| unlimited 4G. But hey, I guess those new BMWs were worth
| it.
| incone123 wrote:
| Poor people in Europe already die of cold every winter. The
| UK especially has a lot of housing in bad condition. Before
| the pandemic I would regularly see retirement-aged people
| sitting in the local indoor shopping centre all day in
| winter.
| distances wrote:
| Where exactly? At least in Northern Europe it's very rare
| that even homeless would die of cold, and most of such
| cases are due to drunkenly passing out in the snow.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| European != middle class.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| The poor and vulnerable people in places like Austria,
| France, Germany, Netherlands, etc. receive generous
| welfare and assistance from the government to not starve
| and freeze to death. They'll be fine.
|
| In Eastern Europe, not so much.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| Are you implying that France, Germany, and Netherlands
| don't have homeless and elderly people? These two groups
| are the most at risk of dying form cold.
|
| edit: I'm glad that you mention Eastern Europe, which is
| where I come from. Paradoxically, more people die from
| cold in the West, because their milder climates don't
| force them to invest in insulation.
|
| edit2: the previous claim may be based on flawed
| methology, see https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/articl
| e/38/4/806/2966950
| xiphias2 wrote:
| If you really think that all Europeans are going to
| vacations and buying game consoles, you havent been to a
| village in an Eastern-European country yet.
|
| I am sure that living from $70/month would be hard for any
| of us, but some people have to keep their whole family
| alive from that money, and definately depend on the
| government this winter. If they freeze, nobody will know
| about them and they will be just deleted from the
| statistics.
|
| Heres a video of how the poorest part of Hungary looked
| like a few years ago, and I am sure their life has just
| gotten much worse since a few years ago:
| https://youtu.be/FvoTaqutfVk
| Tenoke wrote:
| I've been to villages in Eastern Europe and wood burning
| is among the main methods of heating. I'm guessing the
| price increases of everything else is what's a bigger
| problem there.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > I've been to villages in Eastern Europe and wood
| burning is among the main methods of heating.
|
| I am from Eastern Europe (Latvia) and this does mostly
| hold true for the countryside: wood burning stoves are
| common.
|
| However, it is likely that inflation and other cost
| increases will also affect the prices of firewood from
| here on out, as well as getting it delivered (unless you
| decided to secure your own, though depending on where/how
| you do that, the legality might be dubious).
|
| From what I know of, most people are noticeably hit by
| the increase of prices in the stores (as well as a
| _somewhat_ decreased selection of what 's available), in
| addition to greatly increased electricity prices, which
| has been a topic that gets brought up often in the news.
|
| There aren't that many great solutions for that, to be
| honest - both diesel generators and solar panels are too
| expensive for most people, even though there are programs
| to aid families with purchasing and setting up their own,
| if they're capable of partaking in those:
| https://www.altum.lv/en/services/individuals/energy-
| efficien... (the Latvian translation has more information
| https://www-altum-
| lv.translate.goog/pakalpojumi/iedzivotajie...)
|
| That said, it's probably difficult to undertake something
| like that, when you're living from paycheck to paycheck.
| fy20 wrote:
| Here in Lithuania a tonne of wood pellets went from
| 125EUR last year to 500EUR today. It will probably go up
| even more as the winter progresses.
| baybal2 wrote:
| badpun wrote:
| > Also the amount of LPG redirected from India and Pakistan
| to Europe will have a huge effect on those countries.
|
| India's buying the excess gas from Russia though, so they
| have access to a seller that Europe won't touch.
| distances wrote:
| There are currently no European sanctions against Russian
| gas. Nobody is very happy about it, but Europe would still
| buy that gas if the pipelines were open.
| origin_path wrote:
| Multiple gas pipelines from Russia are closed because
| European governments refuse to allow them to run. That's
| gas sanctions, why do you argue otherwise? For example
| Germany refuses to open Nord Stream 2, and Nord Stream 1
| is broken due to sanctions on equipment repair - the
| turbines are made by Siemens and several are sitting in
| UK factories unable to be re-exported back due to
| sanctions.
|
| Although the troubles with Nord Stream 1 are well known,
| the termination of the other pipelines is less well
| understood. Poland for example closed the Jamal pipeline
| due to the war in Ukraine:
|
| https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/poland-terminates-yamal-
| gas-...
|
| We also have to remember that Europe seized Russian euros
| and broke contracts in other ways, so at this point even
| if the pipelines were re-opened and the equipment
| properly repaired, it's not really obvious if Russia
| would even want to go back to selling to Europe.
| Unreliable partner after all compared to China, India and
| elsewhere. Europe is buying their gas anyway due to
| arbitrage so it looks like a winner for Russia
| unfortunately.
| kken wrote:
| >Nord Stream 1 is broken due to sanctions on equipment
| repair
|
| It's well known that this is not true. You are
| perpetuating russian propaganda.
| foverzar wrote:
| > It's well known that this is not true
|
| Well known? Is it? Could you please give some reference
| then?
|
| No one would be surprised to see a "work-to-rule" action,
| but how is it "russian propaganda" that Europe had
| sanctioned Russian energy industry and it "somehow" had
| consequences?
| [deleted]
| KronisLV wrote:
| I don't really care much for the debate, or fully buy
| into either perspective on the issue, but here's what a
| quick search turned up, from the 31st of August:
| https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/31/business/nord-
| stream-1-eu...
|
| > Russian state energy giant Gazprom cut all deliveries
| through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Wednesday in what
| it said was a planned shutdown until Saturday for
| maintenance work.
|
| > In recent months, Gazprom has slashed flows through
| Nord Stream 1 to just 20% of capacity, citing maintenance
| issues and blaming Western sanctions on exports of
| technology imposed in response to Russia's invasion of
| Ukraine.
|
| > Russia has also cut off supplies to several
| "unfriendly" European countries and energy companies over
| their refusal to pay for gas in rubles, as the Kremlin
| insists, rather than the euros or dollars stated in
| contracts. European leaders say Russia is trying to
| blackmail countries over their support for Ukraine.
|
| > France's Engie (EGIEY) is the latest casualty. On
| Tuesday, Gazprom said it would completely suspend
| deliveries to Engie (EGIEY) from Thursday, claiming that
| it had not received full payment from the company for the
| gas it supplied in July.
|
| Someone can probably look up Gazprom's own PR response
| and see how it matches up (or doesn't) with the statement
| by Engie, as well as what differs. Most of the time it's
| good to look up what various sources say, if you're
| interested in it, and come to your own conclusions.
|
| From my perspective, reliance on another country, the
| relations with which have historically been troubled (and
| are now further strained, given the geopolitical events),
| does not seem like the best of ideas - alternative means
| of securing the resources that are needed for providing
| electricity/heat are more than welcome.
| marvin wrote:
| Russian propaganda says that Nord Stream 1 is closed due
| to repairs. It obviously is not. It is closed because
| Russia wages economic warfare against Europe. You won't
| find a peer-reviewed double-blind study saying this,
| signed by foreign minister Lavrov with an interview in
| the appendix where he states that this is in fact
| Russia's deliberate policy choice, but one can use some
| basic reasoning.
|
| The desire for punishing Europe certainly stems from
| Europe's similarly uncompromising economic warfare
| against Russia, but let's at least try to focus on the
| ground truths and not get caught up in a bunch of
| transparent lies.
| hi_herbert wrote:
| micwag wrote:
| > We also have to remember that Europe seized Russian
| euros and broke contracts in other ways
|
| First point is true, but the second ist not. Germany went
| out its way to ensure all contracts are fulfilled to
| avoid this claim.
|
| > it's not really obvious if Russia would even want to go
| back to selling to Europe.
|
| Russia very much wants to go back to selling gas and oil
| to europe, they have after all no other relevant
| industries and pipelines to China/India don't have the
| capacity to replace european delivery.
|
| > Europe is buying their gas anyway due to arbitrage so
| it looks like a winner for Russia unfortunately.
|
| Even chinese and indian experts see russia as the loser
| of this conflict and to be relegated to a possible
| chinese puppet state in the future.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > Even chinese and indian experts see russia as the loser
| of this conflict
|
| how is the ruble doing on international currency
| exchange?
| micwag wrote:
| To quote the state owned russian news agency:
|
| > "Repeated case of interference of the Bank of Russia
| into implementation of the budget rule in terms of
| foreign currency purchases means that the floating
| currency rate regime existed from the end of 2014 until
| early 2018 is _'only on paper now'_ and is actually
| substituted by regulation of the currency market by the
| Bank for Russia for the purpose of eliminating threats
| for financial stability, jeopardized by the budget rule
| effect, "
|
| https://tass.com/economy/1026029
|
| This was 4 years ago, and is even more so true now. The
| ruble at the moment is NOT free floating.
| kennend3 wrote:
| > how is the ruble doing on international currency
| exchange?
|
| I always find it strange when people post comments like
| this. It is a clear indicator you don't understand
| financial markets.
|
| If you were to look at the data yourself, you would see
| in Oct 2017 it was 58.11 and in Oct 2022 it is 57.88 (vs
| USD)
|
| In your opinion, what does this indicate? FX is always
| "Currency vs currency", so has the Ruble weakened?
| Perhaps the US dollar strengthened? What caused the
| change? Is the change even meaningful?
|
| Is the change "market driven" or has the state
| intervened?
|
| It looks like the state has been actively defending it,
| so what is your actual point?
| hackerlight wrote:
| A higher FX is usually neither here nor there and whether
| it's desirable depends on the makeup of exports vs
| imports. That's why countries often have a fixed peg
| instead of a "just make it go up" policy.
|
| Russia is the definite loser out of this, and indeed
| everyone is, the decision to invade was a catastrophe for
| everyone on multiple levels.
| hi_herbert wrote:
| origin_path wrote:
| The contracts to buy gas were denominated in euros, they
| then refused to pay in euros and in fact seized the euros
| that were already paid but not yet converted. Even the
| most generous interpretation of a contract would struggle
| to consider this sort of behaviour not a violation.
| phicoh wrote:
| The key thing to remember is that Russia reduced the gas
| supply to Europe already one year ago. Way before they
| invaded Ukraine, and therefor before any of the recent
| sanctions.
|
| It is assumed that Russia sent a warning message to EU
| countries not to interfere. Fortunately, most EU
| countries recognized that Russia was no longer a reliable
| supplier. And imposed sanctions, delivered weapons
| anyhow.
|
| Russia thought they could threaten their most important
| customers. The problem Russia now has, it that there is
| hardly any capacity to sell gas to other countries.
| Building pipelines will take many years and will have to
| happen without western technology (I'm sure Russia would
| like China to own their pipelines). Or Russia has to
| build more LNG terminals, but that is also not ideal. And
| ship from western countries probably won't go there.
|
| Of course, the downside of relying to much on Russian gas
| is that EU countries now have to deal with an enormous
| energy shortage.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| I think you are reading way too many one sided sources.
|
| The Russians are selling more to China and India since
| the war. The higher price of gas means in the short run
| they are making more money.
|
| Yes, some sanctions might be annoying, in the way a
| mosquito is annoying to you, but basically nothing europe
| has done has really had an impact. (Most weapons have
| come from the US).
|
| So while parts of what you say is true, frankly the
| situation is terrible for Europe, quite bad for Russia,
| and pretty awesome for the US
| phicoh wrote:
| Yes, Russia is selling a little bit more to China and
| India. Not nearly enough to make up for the reduction in
| sales to EU countries. In addition, China and India get
| nice discounts.
|
| Yes, Russia makes a lot more money at the moment because
| the small amount of gas they still sell to EU countries
| is expensive enough that it nets more money.
|
| Anybody who has been following the war a bit will notice
| that Russia is now seriously running out of modern
| weapons. By the time tanks from the early 60s show up at
| the front line, you can be sure something is wrong. At
| the moment, and due sanctions, Russia has a bit of a
| production problem.
|
| Since the 2014 sanctions, Russia has a bit a problem with
| obtaining micro-electronics. The effects of that are also
| quite noticeable.
|
| In any case. Over the summer, EU countries managed to
| fill their gas storage while producing enough electricity
| to keep most stuff running. So yes, the situation is bad
| for the economy and EU countries have to figure how to
| help people pay their energy bill, etc. But if the
| current situation is 'terrible' then I wonder what word
| has to be used for a real disaster.
| trasz wrote:
| Not sure about India, but China is buying the gas at
| prices way below market rate, likely at loss - because
| Russia has no other choice but to give them whatever they
| want, simply to stay relevant. Which means, the more they
| sell, the more they lose.
| distances wrote:
| You have quite the nerve to spread these falsehoods here,
| and then claim it's _Europe_ that is the unreliable
| partner. Amazing and supremely twisted.
|
| I have no interest in discussing this with you as you're
| not here with good intentions, but I would let others
| know that Western countries were very accommodating with
| the spare parts, which in practice called the Russian
| bluff. I doubt Germany will go back to Russian gas after
| they pulled this one.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nord-stream-
| turbine-...
| hi_herbert wrote:
| osipov wrote:
| Sharlin wrote:
| > Peoples' homes not getting electricity will be the last
| resort and unlikely as large industries will be asked first to
| stop producing and take the government money.
|
| Interesting. Here in Finland the plan is to target domestic use
| first if the push comes to shove, to keep the industry up and
| running.
| mtsr wrote:
| One reason for the difference could be that heating in
| consumers homes is very much dependent on electricity
| (whether or not the actual heating is gas-powered
| notwithstanding), whereas in other countries there may be
| more woodfired heating, for example.
| [deleted]
| newsclues wrote:
| Does Switzerland border Russia or another country that may
| invade if industrial production shuts down?
| Sharlin wrote:
| Russia is in no shape to attack anybody right now. And
| industrial production doesn't really have anything to do
| with any hypothetical acts of war. The fact is simply that
| the industry is vital to keeping the economy running, while
| rolling blackouts in homes are in the end merely an
| inconvenience.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| What's up with all the European energy crisis scare posts making
| it to the front page today? Did the Russian troll factories
| discover HN just now, or what else happened?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Why do comments like these only pop up on articles that
| highlight problems in europe? I never see them in the hundreds
| of articles per month that focus on the US. It's weird because
| that is exactly the type of comment you used to read from
| fragile patriotic americans that were unable to handle any
| criticism back in the early 2000s, but this time from
| europeans.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >Why do comments like these only pop up on articles that
| highlight problems in europe?
|
| Probably because the US is a net exporter of energy and is
| not in danger of running out of fuel during the winter like
| most of Europe is.
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| Because social media is currently under MASSIVE attack from
| Russian trolls. And then there are people doing it for free,
| because their are easily manipulated or because they think
| they'd benefit from Russian puppets taking over their
| country... I wonder on which side you are.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| What do you mean? Even if we ignore the "you are with us or
| with the terrorists" tone of your comment (that kind of
| prove my point) it still does not make sense. Where are the
| accusations of Russian bots/dinsfo on articles about
| American healthcare, or wealth inequality or gun violence
| in the US? Because those are also subjects that can be
| exploited by foreign powers in an effort to destabilize the
| US.
|
| In fact, tons of europeans online love, _love_ to highlight
| and amplify those exact issues, so I guess they are
| exploited by russian propaganda too? Or is it only
| europeans that get to use that as an excuse to deflect
| criticism and discussion about their internal issues?
| gergov wrote:
| just because we are kind of worried about the winter even
| with IT wages doesn't make us russian bots?
| koheripbal wrote:
| The coming EU energy crisis is real.
|
| Read the articles. These aren't Russian trolls. They are
| well described fundamental problems.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Are you honestly suggesting this is a fabricated crisis?
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Isn't it obvious? Gas is not sanctioned, yet the supply of
| Russian gas to Europe was significantly reduced. After many
| b***t excuses, Russia admitted that the gas supplies won't be
| resumed until the sanctions are lifted.
|
| So yes, the crisis is manufactured by Russia to produce a
| political leverage. And part of that strategy is of course
| spreading FUD through various media.
| eldenwrong wrote:
| Europe sanctioned Russia so they retaliated? It was
| obviously expected and politicians were okay with that
| outcome. It was not a 4d chess move
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I don't disagree, but that's not what we're discussing.
| OP doubted that the crisis is manufactured, which is just
| plain wrong.
| emkoemko wrote:
| why does Russia need sanctions lifted Putin said it won't
| effect Russia at all
| masswerk wrote:
| No, this is another agenda, if any. Energy crisis scare was
| already around last winter.
|
| BTW, phasing out nuclear power plants without a suitable
| replacement in the high demand segment is actually a problem,
| which is only elevated by the problems with natural gas
| imports.
| kaybe wrote:
| It might have become more present for everyone because it
| became colder. Two weeks ago it was still very warm around
| Germany.
| jopnv wrote:
| How can it be a scare when it is currently happening?
| j-bos wrote:
| Digestable topics involving tech, math, and logistics are
| usually interesting to the hn crowd? Intersting topics often
| get front page.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Belgium just shut down a functional nuclear reactor:
| https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Belgium-T...
| nebalee wrote:
| https://taketonews.com/engie-repeats-message-after-open-lett...
| "The closing dates are determined by law and the licenses to
| operate the power plants end on those dates. That has been
| established for a long time and we have been preparing for that
| for a long time." The government did ask
| Engie in July to see whether both reactors could possibly
| continue for a few more months to bridge the difficult winter,
| but according to the French energy group, that is unfeasible
| both technically and in terms of safety.
| panick21_ wrote:
| If you only have governments that create regulation that make
| it impossible to operate then things are impossible to
| operate.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Germany tried to make the exact same claim this year about
| their three remaining plants - but the nuclear engineers
| running the plants were brave enough to say the gov't was
| lying. ...not that it mattered because the German gov't just
| doubled down on closing those plants regardless.
|
| There is no technical reason they could not have extended
| their shutdown plans.
|
| This is just an unfortunate combination of bureaucratic
| lethargy and anti-nuclear ideologues.
| elric wrote:
| When do you suggest nuclear reactors should be shut down? After
| they stop being functional? Seems risky.
|
| Is the timing unfortunate? Yes. But everything else is just
| exaggerated. This was a small reactor which was responsible for
| a tiny amount of production in a tiny country.
|
| Should we replace it? Maybe. But then we should have started
| construction 20 years ago. Given that this didn't happen, the
| rest of the discussion is somewhat moot. We could probably
| start replacing it today, but not many nuclear power plants are
| being built in Europe, costs are insane, and timeframes are so
| long that no one is willing to invest.
|
| There are (somewhat literally) crowd funded suppliers of
| renewable energy (cooperatives like Ecopower.be). Perhaps
| someone should start something similar for nukes.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This reactor could have continued to run for a long time. It
| should be should down only if continued running it is more
| expensive then a complete rebuild of a base load that can
| replace it (not just a wind farm, but long term storage as
| well).
|
| This is really a tragedy.
| emmelaich wrote:
| 5% of Belgium's power doesn't seem tiny to me.
| pennaMan wrote:
| Just..... Why? This is so balatanly stupid I can't find my
| words..
| nxm wrote:
| Because "green energy"
| orwin wrote:
| It's not, its because it reached end of life, and the date
| we could've done something about it was ten years ago.
|
| I'm as pro-nuclear as you can be, since at least 2017 but
| especially since i've read about it, in 2019, but let's not
| blame nuclear failure on "green energy" when it's not.
| Nuclear tech have been abandonned by the general public and
| the politician since the 90s, and especailly after
| fuckushima, was faded by the society.
|
| It has nothing to do with green energy. Maybe Greepeace is
| at fault, but this is probably one of the most corrupt
| environmentalist NGO anyway, so i doubt serious people
| listen to them.
| k__ wrote:
| Yes.
|
| We see how "well" it goes in France, where they kept
| nuclear going and now their reactors are rotting away
| under their butts and they have to import from Germany.
|
| Life in Europe would be better if conservatives wouldn't
| have failed us and we actually had "green energy" by
| now...
| orwin wrote:
| Actually, the nuclear situation in France is the exact
| same as Belgium, with the same causes, except in 2010
| some investment were made to make the plant last twenty
| more years. Those investments weren't done between 2019
| and 2022, for multiple reasons but with one base: the
| general public don't really care, nor like talking about
| nuclear plant. Conservatives have nothing to do with
| this, as they weren't really in power since 2012.
|
| Energy is a complex issue, probably the most complex
| societal, technical and social issue we have, and trying
| to put everything on one single actor (or movement) do
| not make the discussion constructive. I'm for a diverse
| mix and reducing gas, oil and coal, not in percentage but
| in actual quantity (we don't really do this in europe
| sadly).
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| So we could have rolling blackouts sooner, because
| without storage to sort out intermittencies and without
| gas they are inevitable.
| astra90 wrote:
| In 2003, the Belgian government decided to stop producing
| nuclear energy, mostly driven by the Green party. They
| introduced a law that contained a schedule to shut down a
| number of nuclear power plants in the country.
|
| In 2015 the government already extended the lifespan of 2
| nuclear power plants. However, the power plant that was just
| shut down (Doel 3) did not get an extension of lifespan and
| so it has been shut down according to the initial law
| introduced in 2003.
|
| It's an understatement to say it's unfortunate that it has
| been shut during an energy crisis.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Let me get this straight... Politicians wrote a schedule in
| 2003. According to the schedule, this particular plant
| should be shut down now. And we have people in this thread
| (not you) claiming that there are "technical reasons" why
| the plant has to be shut down right now, not after this
| winter. So, by pure coincidence, politicians in 2003 just
| happened to predict the exact date 19 years in the future
| when it would no longer be technically feasible to operate
| the plant? The exact date! Can I please have these same
| politicians predict next week's lottery numbers for me?
| toast0 wrote:
| When you have a planned shutdown date, you stop doing
| maintenance work that is needed to continue operating
| after that date. Maybe there's some leeway, maybe there
| isn't. Depends on how much maintenance was skipped, and
| how much maintenance is required de jure and how much
| maintenance is required de facto.
|
| Ideally, on the day after planned shutdown, your reactor
| would be in need of refueling, and all the other large
| maintenance items; and you wouldn't have the parts on
| hand to do it. 19 years is plenty of time to align the
| schedules.
| _ph_ wrote:
| That is the same issue with the idea of keeping the
| German reactors running. Everything has been planned with
| the scheduled stop of operations at the end of the year.
| After politics is now considering to keep them running,
| the whole technical challenges come to the the light.
| Take the one reactor operating still in Bavaria: the fuel
| rods are so weak that after November the plant cannot be
| restarted with these fuel rods. Also, there is a leaking
| valve which soon has to be repaired. Only optinon now is
| to shut the reactor down, repair the valve and restart
| ist. But even then, the operation isn't guaranteed, as
| reactors often have to be shut down for small incidents.
| But any of those would mean the stop of the operation of
| the reactor.
|
| One way or the other, the next time this plant shuts down
| after November, it stays down. So there is no big hope of
| this plant operating for much longer any way you turn it.
| Of course, new fuel rods could be ordered, but probably
| that would take over a year, as far as I know. Which
| means, it will not be part of the energy supply for the
| next 12 months and whether the investment into getting
| new fuel rods and keeping the plant ready for service for
| another year is worth it, is another question.
| elric wrote:
| Why? Because the reactor was ancient and decrepit. It doesn't
| help that the power plant in question was badly damaged by a
| saboteur a few years ago. A saboteur who was never caught nor
| identified.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The 40 year license expires by the end of this year, and an
| extension wasn't granted.
|
| Someone who can read Belgian news will need to explain why
| the license extension wasn't granted, and whether that makes
| sense.
| pg314 wrote:
| In 1999, to obtain the participation of the greens in the
| government, the other parties agreed to the closing of
| nuclear reactors after 40 years of operation [1]. 2022
| seemed like a long time away at the time, especially in
| politics.
|
| In 2012, small cracks were discovered in the pressure
| vessels of a number of reactors, introduced by hydrogen
| during the casting of the steel. That was grist on the mill
| of the anti-nuclear lobby. According to the expert reports,
| the vessels should be ok (there are some links to English
| reports on the nuclear safety agency website [2]), but it
| is easy to fear-monger when nuclear energy is involved.
| That seemed to have sealed the fate of the nuclear
| reactors.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-
| out#Belgiu... [2]
| https://fanc.fgov.be/nl/dossiers/kerncentrales-
| belgie/actual...
| hef19898 wrote:
| It is so funny to see all those anti-renewable lobbiests come out
| of the woods everybtime _something_ happens with regard to energy
| that can be, somehow, blamed on renewables. Previously it was the
| fossil fuel lobby, now it is the pro nuclear lobby. All predict
| doom, everytime. And all of those fail to properly analyse the
| way electricity is priced on the European market, and _then_
| start looking at those special causes, French lower then expected
| nuclear capacity, a screwed up gas market among other things.
| retinaros wrote:
| lower than expected capacity because macron wanted to go away
| from nuclear five year ago. what do you think the shareholders
| of french nuclear and energy company wanted when they heard
| that? to reduce cost, hires, maintenance. the government is to
| blame for everything happening in france for abidding to the
| green party that were fed russian propaganda about renewable
| energies such as solars that just have renewable the name
| (cheap solar panel made in china using gas and with a life of
| 10-20years) not the pro nuclear lobby.
| sofixa wrote:
| > because macron wanted to go away from nuclear five year ago
|
| Source? The plan was to _reduce_ nuclear share to ~50%, not
| "go away from nuclear", which still required building a ton
| of new reactors to replace those close to their end of life.
| Furthermore, the nuclear reactors are owned and operated by
| EDF, which has always been majority state owned and is in the
| process of being renationalisated. Shareholders were never
| asked about anything.
| retinaros wrote:
| tomorrow your boss says to you he's gonna reduce headcount
| in IT by 50%. what is your boss gonna do short term? is he
| gonna plan how he is gonna manage your promotion when you
| will be one of the few not fired or is he gonna focus on
| firing the 50% he needs so that shareholders are happy with
| stock price?
| sofixa wrote:
| Not reduce _by_ 50%, reduce _to_ 50% from the current
| 50%. With the increasing electric consumption, it 's
| barely a reduction in real terms at all.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Oh, so it is some politians fault that power plant operators
| screw up maintenance?
|
| PV and wind, using Chinese modules, outbid nuclear already in
| 2017 (?), being cheaper then Hinkley C. Never mind where we
| vet nuclear fuel rods from, right? Plus the fact that the
| summer heat wave and drought had negative effects on power
| plant output, not for the first time, due to limited cooling
| capacities. But hey, the current political climate is great
| to turn that into a "we are all gonna freeze in the darkness
| of winter" narrative, one thatt is _easily_ highjacked by
| populist movements. Movements, I have to remind everyone,
| that are, and have been, manipulated by Russia.
|
| It is the German greens that oush for more weapons for
| Ukraine and extensions for nuclear power plants. It doesn't
| get anymore real politik than that.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| What you are saying is both inaccurate and lies.
|
| >Oh, so it is some politians fault that power plant
| operators screw up maintenance?
|
| Firstly, EDF, the french operator for nuclear power plants
| belongs to 80+% to the state. So, first off: fucking yes it
| is, especially when said politicians have spent the last 20
| years not investing in their plants, despite the insane
| work that EDF has done. Reminder that said politicians are
| forcing EDF to sell 120TWh worth of electricity to
| "alternative providers", who are currently kicking out
| their customers to just make money selling that electricity
| back on the market.. Secondly, maintenance was delayed by
| Covid, a once in a century event, and two years worth of
| delay is remarkably short. Thirdly, due to said politicians
| continuous non-maintenance of the nuclear sector, there are
| indeed very few people able to maintain said reactors.
| Surprising isn't it ? Spend 20 years saying nuclear is shit
| and should be abandoned (purely because of political plays
| to win alliances with the greens) and then play surprised
| when your only source of reliable power doesn't have anyone
| to maintain it, because what engineer would do the career
| suicide of going in an industry which is being abandoned ?
|
| >PV and wind, using Chinese modules, outbid nuclear already
| in 2017 (?),
|
| Ah yeah, the PV and wind that Germany has installed, that
| are currently pretty much all not working (https://app.elec
| tricitymaps.com/zone/DE?utm_source=electrici...,
| 370gCO2/kWh, up to 510 yesterday, and hasn't gone
| underneath 300 for the past month) ? Sounds great. Both for
| people who get to sell their PV that only needs to run for
| half the year because it literally can't in winter and for
| the petrol groups that are selling gas to make up for the
| energy.
|
| But sure, they cost less. Don't take into account the
| insane maintenance costs (have fun changing your turbines
| every 20 years, they're made of non recyclable material,
| it's all good), the insane land use (contrary to some
| beliefs, not every country has surface to waste like the US
| does), the inconsistency of the production (see: germany).
|
| The german greens are, for once in their fucking lives,
| doing something sensible, both when it comes to Ukraine or
| nuclear power plants (and they're doing so because they are
| forced). Don't let that make you forget the past 30 years
| of decisions that set all of us back.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Your post would be a lot more convincing without the easy
| scape goat identifying and cursing.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| No, it's you choosing to cherry-pick it because I said
| "fucking". Grow up.
| belorn wrote:
| Of course PV and wind outbid nuclear. Using those when the
| weather are optimal and Russian natural gas when it doesn't
| was much cheaper than having a nuclear plant produce both
| when the weather is optimal and when it isn't. It was this
| economic model that resulted in Russian natural gas being
| declared green by Germany.
|
| Operating a nuclear plant only in order to compete with oil
| and natural gas is simply too expensive, and wind and solar
| can always out compete nuclear when its windy and sunny.
| Everyone has acted economical rational to create the
| situation we are in.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Not to mention that next generation nuclear in France was
| also killed by the Left and the Greens in the 90s. France
| could have many Superphenix by now.
| davidro80 wrote:
| eldenwrong wrote:
| The "pro nuclear lobby" doesn't even exist.
|
| There's two big players, oil and renewable companies. Which are
| actually the same and both hate nuclear.
|
| I thought this was obvious to everyone?
| panick21_ wrote:
| > now it is the pro nuclear lobby.
|
| Its hilarious that a real button support for nuclear is claimed
| to be driven by a nuclear lobby.
|
| The scary Nuclear lobby of Greenpeace imagination has never
| existed and was always tiny and almost totally incompetence.
|
| But it just so happens that these dangerous underground force
| comes out of nowhere during this energy crisis to destroy
| renewables.
| [deleted]
| phicoh wrote:
| Part of the pro-nuclear 'lobby' seems to be people who can't
| handle that wind and solar are less predictable.
|
| So they create horror stories where the lights go out when
| there is no wind in the middle of the night in winter. And then
| nuclear has to save the day.
|
| Any kind of storage is immediately dismissed as infeasible or
| too expensive.
|
| The make it extra scary, this article also introduces importing
| electricity as really bad. Without any kind of argument why
| just a single number of how much is imported shows how bad it
| is.
|
| This way, shutting down a nuclear plant in Germany can be made
| extra scary because of a few neighboring countries that import
| electricity.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| We need more nuclear power plants and we need them yesterday,
| there is no other mid term solution for the ongoing/coming energy
| crisis. The problem is that replacing old nuclear power plants
| (or building new ones) takes many years, time we don't have...
| Let's see how this situation evolves.
| pmlnr wrote:
| Yeah... about that. I was completely pro-nuclear until very
| recently, when I learnt that:
|
| - the summer droughts caused nuclear reactors to stop due to
| the lack of water
|
| - russia provides ~40% of ALL nuclear fuel
|
| - even France is getting their from Kazahstan
|
| So in light of these: more solar and wind, combined with
| possibly metan generation to store it as per
| https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/07/22/were-going-to-...
| flaviut wrote:
| According to [1], fully enriched and fabricated uranium fuel
| is approx $2770/kg, or about $0.0077/kWh.
|
| The average heat rate for natural gas is something like
| 7732BTU/kWh, or 44% efficient[2]. The cost of natural gas
| around Sep 2019, before this whole mess, was $2.56/MMBtu[3].
| That comes out to $0.02/kWh, 2.5x per kWh than nuclear.
|
| At current price levels of $8.81/MMBtu, that comes to
| $0.068/kWh, or 8.8x per kWh than nuclear.
|
| Not even considering how nuclear fuel can be stored and
| stockpiled much more effectively than gas, the benefit to
| Russia of using gas is much much higher than using nuclear.
|
| [1]: http://www.energybc.ca/cache/nuclear/nuclear2/www.world-
| nucl... [2]:
| https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=667&t=3 [3]:
| https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Kazakhstan is not part of Russia. Russia appears to be a very
| small supplier?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium.
| ..
| panick21_ wrote:
| > - the summer droughts caused nuclear reactors to stop due
| to the lack of water
|
| That very much depends on specific technology and is not
| inherent in all nuclear. If and how much water is needed
| depends very much on what and where you are building.
|
| If we were not stuck with technology from 1960 this wouldn't
| have been an issue for decades, but instead of innovating the
| last 40 years nuclear industry had to fight a battle for
| survival and with very little research.
|
| > - russia provides ~40% of ALL nuclear fuel
|
| This is because Russia had a explicit policy of underbidding
| nuclear everybody in nuclear fuel providing.
|
| This is not inevitable, there is plenty of nuclear material
| in lots of places and many places that can make fuel.
|
| Nuclear fuel is far easier to transport then gas.
| akvadrako wrote:
| These are very weak arguments. Uranium is plentiful all over
| the world, it just isn't currently mined in the West because
| it's so cheap to buy. And Nuclear reactors can be designed to
| work without large supplies of fresh water.
|
| Even if they were good arguments, Nuclear isn't just slightly
| better than solar/wind, so some problems don't change the
| conclusion.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Good luck with that in Germany.
|
| The cabinet member in charge of energy is literally a former
| Greenpeace executive who doubled down on closing the three
| remaining plants in Germany THIS YEAR.
|
| German is insane.
| _ph_ wrote:
| What you write ist plain untrue. The cabinet member who is a
| former Greenpeace executive is part of the foreign ministry,
| the job is to talk to other countries about actions against
| the climate change. In no way is she responsible for the
| German energy politics.
|
| And please refrain from calling a whole country as insane,
| especially based on wrong information.
| pydry wrote:
| >We need more nuclear power plants
|
| They're 5x more expensive than wind and solar and about 2x more
| expensive than a wind+solar+pumped storage combo.
|
| In France their capacity factor has declined to ~72% which is
| only about 5% above the best wind farms.
|
| What's the up side? I dont see it any more. It's an overpriced
| means of generating electricity that is _slightly_ less
| variable that has a lead time of 19.5 years more than a solar
| farm.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This 5x number is nonsense. Its generalizing for a few
| projects that happened in a time when there was very limited
| constructionist and because of 40 years of neglect not even a
| workforce that was available.
|
| > wind+solar+pumped storage combo
|
| Pumped storage is available in most places. And there is
| literally no alternative.
|
| Its insane to build a society on a technology that if
| something goes wrong, society only has 1-2 days of
| electricity storage.
|
| > In France their capacity factor has declined to ~72% which
| is only about 5% above the best wind farms.
|
| The best windfarms that only exist in a few places and is
| certainty not generally that high.
|
| An France this year had some issues that happened because
| nuclear was neglected for years as their leadership jumped on
| the all renewables trend.
|
| France had advanced reactors in the 90s and guess what,
| instead of building them they were killed in the endless
| attempted by some forces (usually greens and left) to prevent
| nuclear from happening.
|
| Had France simply build 3-5 of those plants they had ready in
| the late 90s they would be amazing by now.
|
| > slightly less variable
|
| Is actually much less variable if you look at it in totality.
|
| > lead time of 19.5 years
|
| Again this is just generalizing from the worst possible
| example. If a country actually commits to building a
| significant amount of plants rather then a single project
| that constantly on the verge of being canceled things look
| quite different.
|
| Had Germany in 2000 simply started to build as many reactors
| as possible they would be finishing them at many a year now
| and building them at a rate of 4-5 years a pop. They would be
| far more green and far more reliably then what they have
| actually managed with their green revolution (and huge
| investment in gas).
| kurupt213 wrote:
| It's hard to be sympathetic when this situation was so obvious
| and preventable. This is what short term greed and irresponsible
| governance looks like.
| lostlogin wrote:
| A huge part of this was Putin. How would you prevent Putin?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Not being hugely dependent on him would've been a good start.
| The war in ukraine didn't start in 2022. It started 8 years
| ago, which would've been plenty of time to move away from
| russian energy for any competent leadership/government.
| koheripbal wrote:
| An EU energy policy that didn't rely on Russian gas and
| didn't funnel literally hundreds of billions to Putin's
| regime would have been a start.
|
| There were SO SO many public warnings about this.
| baybal2 wrote:
| nivenkos wrote:
| By building nuclear power plants and electrifying industry
| over the last 15 years since the Litvinenko poisoning, etc.
|
| But joining the war this year was crazy given the current
| situation, Europe is doomed.
| marvin wrote:
| Look on the bright side. At least Europe has made it clear
| that they won't bow down to force. It should ideally have
| made the obvious policy choices eight years ago at the
| latest.
|
| But doing the short-term irrational thing and joining the
| economic (and in weapons support, kinetic) war against
| Russia is exactly what the fucked-up initial conditions
| require. When you've worked yourself into that kind of
| lose-lose situation, making the rational choice has a long-
| term game theoretic downside.
|
| The next Putin that manages to maneuver a Western country
| into a bind can't count on them rolling onto their backs
| and crying for mercy, even if that seemed like the rational
| choice. We've seen it demonstrated, also disproving that
| Westerners are lazy, fat, spoiled and unable to handle
| significant pain for a greater cause.
|
| This is certainly a lesson for the West, but it's also a
| lesson for the autocrats.
| quonn wrote:
| Europe is not doomed.
|
| If we didn't join this war, the war would come to us. Most
| Europeans fortunately understand this.
| eldenwrong wrote:
| It kind of is. A failed experiment sadly. They have
| brainwashed their people into destroying their quality of
| life to "save" the environment.
| lawn wrote:
| The vast majority of the affected aren't the ones responsible
| for this mess, why is it hard to be sympathetic for those
| people?
| lucumo wrote:
| They are responsible. Democracy doesn't mean that the people
| get to pick their scapegoats. It means that the people have a
| choice in steering the country, and consequently a
| responsibility to steer it right.
|
| Assigning someone with dumb ideas to run the country, not
| checking and correcting them, and then scapegoating them when
| it goes wrong... That's not democracy, that's laziness and
| cowardice.
| tgv wrote:
| TBH, the majority is responsible for electing right-wing
| governments or coalitions that have put their head where
| their wallet is: pumping up profits of their friends and
| well-doers, lowering taxes, and privatizing and further
| ignoring infrastructure and governmental duties (and ignoring
| climate change, long-term changes in society, etc.). It hurts
| me to say that the many of the former social-democratic, and
| quite a few of the green, parties simply participated.
|
| So the majority might be partially responsible. If you
| disagree hard, we'll be heading into "politeia" discussions,
| king-philosophers and what not.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| > It hurts me to say that the many of the former social-
| democratic, and quite a few of the green, parties simply
| participated.
|
| In Sweden, the green and socialists have been running the
| show for the past 8 years and during this period shut down
| 4 nuclear reactors that had at least 20+ years left of
| steam.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Every left wing government was fine with cheap russian gas
| for decades.
| koheripbal wrote:
| The wave of mass hysteria in Germany, after the Japan
| incident, to kill nuclear (which I personally suspect was
| driven by Russian influence operations) came with broad
| public support.
|
| ...so no, I continue to have little sympathy to any issues
| Germany will have this winter.
| hrpnk wrote:
| Regarding influence - there is a fairly recent report (Sep,
| 20th) from German journalists on the Russian lobby:
| https://correctiv-org.translate.goog/aktuelles/russland-
| ukra...
| panick21_ wrote:
| Well German politicians had little other options. The
| country is so hilariously anti-nuclear and you clearly
| can't bank on renewables without storage, what other then
| gas should they have done?
|
| Gas from the US or the middle east maybe?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Us Europeans can still look at Texas, if we want to know how it
| is properly done, can't we?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Saying the equivalent of "no u" when no one else even brought
| up the USA is weird but I guess typically european way to
| deflect criticism . Not that comparing a regional blackout
| due to exceptional weather conditions, to a continent wide
| energy shortage cause by policy that has been going on for
| more than a year now makes any sense.
|
| (Even quebec, which is very used to extreme winters, lost
| electricity for nearly a month back in 1998. On the other
| hand, I can't think of anything similar to this train wreck
| situation europe managed to get itself into, not since the
| 70s at least. So it is a pretty unique fuck up due to very
| bad policy, and one that's been happening in slow motion)
| mijoharas wrote:
| > but I guess typically european way to deflect criticism
|
| It'd be great if you didn't lower yourself to name calling
| as well. (Note: I don't much like the comment you're
| responding to, but let's be civil here)
| mardifoufs wrote:
| You are right. Sorry about that, I didn't mean it to be
| insulting.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That makes two...
| matjet wrote:
| Texas has the same pattern as Europe; higher percentages of
| solar and wind, resulting in an overdependence on gas.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And the latter part is wrong: France is mostly nuckear,
| Germany to a huge extent coal, gas has close to no
| significance when it comes to electricity in Germany.
| Norway is hydro, as is Austria.
|
| And the share of renewables in Texas was negligible when
| the frid broke down, that was due to failing gas power
| plants because of low temperatures.
| jltsiren wrote:
| This is more similar to California than Texas. Europe is not
| facing a shortage of energy but a shortage of generation and
| transmission capacity in times of peak demand. Luckily, as we
| know from California, there are plenty of responsible people
| in the society. When there is a risk of shortage and
| blackouts, many people will voluntarily lower their power
| consumption for a while.
|
| Also, because this is about peak demand, increasing base load
| generation is of limited help. There is a shortage of power
| plants that are cheap enough to keep idle most of the time
| but can be adjusted quickly. That means hydro and natural
| gas. Even coal is too expensive. Storage may be the long-term
| solution, but we are not there yet.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > increasing base load generation is of limited help
|
| Of course, but in a system trying to avoid fossil fuel use,
| it smooths out the rough edges in significant ways: during
| non-peak times, by preventing blackouts or brownouts when
| there are medium to long term wind & solar outages (which
| no realistic storage can cover yet in places without pumped
| hydro), and during peak times by reducing the amount of
| additional energy required.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Structurally, the reason Germany has so many coal plants
| compared to gas is that coal was third cheapest on the
| marlets, right aftet wind and PV. That priced gas out of
| the market, simpky because gas was more expensive than coal
| and CO2 certificates to cheap to compensate.
| [deleted]
| bogomipz wrote:
| The intention of your comment appears solely to deflect,
| however what happened in Texas and what is happening in the
| EU right now are not even remotely comparable. The cause of
| the Texas grid failure in February 2021 was a Winter storm
| and a poor decision to cut power to parts to the parts of the
| supply chain that powered the natural gas infrastructure. The
| problem was not the result of not having the energy supplies.
| This has actually been well-documented.[1][2].
|
| The real irony of your comment however is that you are
| actually looking to Texas now. The EU is now relying in large
| part on the US for LNG and much of the LNG is being shipped
| from the Gulf Coast in Texas. The majority of the US excess
| natural gas supply is now being shipped to Europe. As of
| April that was 74%. [3]. I'm guessing it's even more now.
|
| [1] https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/18/texas-winter-
| storm-b...
|
| [2] https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-
| win...
|
| [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52659
| dahart wrote:
| Maybe not what you meant, but Texas based Enron's price
| gouging lead to rolling blackouts in California 20 years ago.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000-01_California_electricity.
| ..
| zarriak wrote:
| Texas is the opposite of this situation because they
| purposely didn't connect their grid to anyone else. The US
| equivalent for mismanagement would be the Colorado River.
|
| The real problem with this situation is we are at a point at
| which deploying fixes to these problems take so long that
| even discussing it feels useless.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Most likely, Italy and eastern Europe, who are net importers.
| Germany is a net exporter, so they would only have blackouts out
| of solidarity.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Without Russian imports, Germany is only a net exporter when
| their renewables are running.
|
| This winter Germany will suffer major shortages of power.
| quonn wrote:
| No we won't.
|
| Gas storages will be almost completely full and the usage has
| already dropped a lot.
|
| Maybe next winter. But by then we probably have a
| replacement.
| yolo3000 wrote:
| You mean Germany is a net exporter of imported Russian gas.
| jotm wrote:
| What Eastern Europe? Romania (pretty balanced and not reliant
| on gas) and Poland (mostly coal, locally mined) are self
| sufficient. Baltics maybe?
| tomwojcik wrote:
| Re Poland locally mined - i dont know wtf went wrong but we
| went from having huge reserves to buying from India within a
| year... A lot of homes rely on coal to be available by the
| time the winter comes and apparently they are left with
| nothing. People stand in line for a few days (literally,
| husband/wife/kid rotation in the queue) just to get the
| ticket for the coal. The ticket guarantees you to get the
| coal once the previous orders are filled. My friends waited
| in such queue a few weeks ago. Eta for coal delivery for a
| private household if you went through all this hussle: April.
| rightbyte wrote:
| When the Covid hoarding panic set in someone bought all
| yeast in my local super market. Couldn't get any for weeks
| becouse people started hoarding when it hit the shelves.
|
| I guess some of your neighbours have years worth of coal
| ... and toilet paper, of course.
| lultimouomo wrote:
| Blackouts wouldn't happen when wind and solar are plenty, which
| is when Germany is exporting. They would happen on windless
| rainy day, during which Germany is importing electricity.
| polski-g wrote:
| de6u99er wrote:
| chironjit wrote:
| Every nuclear proponent in this page conveniently glossing over a
| significant issue: Nuclear waste disposal..
|
| To quote a german article from 2020:
|
| "If nuclear waste can actually be disposed at the new facility
| starting 2050, that would still put Germany in the international
| vanguard: 70 years after humankind began using nuclear energy,
| not a single permanent waste storage site has been officially
| opened anywhere in the world."
|
| Source:https://dw.com/en/germany-launches-new-search-for-
| permanent-...
| sascha_sl wrote:
| Finland will have one operational next year. [1]
|
| That aside, even in a worst case scenario, nuclear waste
| destroys local ecosystems. That cost would still be worthwhile
| if we can prevent the destruction of the global ecosystem.
|
| We're at a stage of impeding global disaster that I'd rather
| have a 50km exclusion zone around Asse (or whatever other site)
| than not being carbon neutral or negative.
|
| But then again, nuclear waste disposal is mostly an unsolved
| problem because it's expensive - and the resources aren't being
| allocated to it because it's not seen as a priority, not
| because it's impossible.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
| Rygian wrote:
| It's not so big of a deal. Quoting [1], "France is the largest
| user of nuclear energy and has also mastered the process of
| recycling their nuclear waste. These two statistics are no
| coincidence. By not having to deal with nuclear waste
| politically, France has been able to build a large number of
| nuclear plants. If other nations would use their system,
| nuclear energy would be a great deal more prevalent."
|
| Some figures for background are given in [2].
|
| [1] http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/anderson-k2/
|
| [2] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-
| France_details_nuclear...
| qalmakka wrote:
| The situation in Italy is bleak - due to widespread NIMBY-ism
| it's basically impossible to build anything. Even hooking up a
| LNG FSRU temporarily in an emergency situation like the current
| one is a monumental feat of burocracy and fighting against
| everyone and everything.
|
| There's a non zero chance that, together with the inevitable far
| right government that will come out of today's elections, the
| country will collapse between this and the following winter.
| Italy is just too dependent from NG, it can't just survive a
| total loss of supplies from Russia sadly.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Russia is going to capitalize on this and the current EU/NATO
| consensus on the Ukraine conflict will collapse.
|
| This winter is going to be a very volatile time.
| jopsen wrote:
| Democracies can endure a lot of hardship. Deciding to give in
| to Russia is not going to be popular.
|
| It's possible EU/NATO will collapse, it's not a while since
| we were tested like this. Well, maybe if we could endure
| covid lockdowns, then maybe a few rolling blackouts won't be
| the end of the EU.
|
| If nothing else rolling blackouts would motivate massive
| investment.
|
| Moreover, I doubt politicians will be able to see submission
| before Russia as a solution to rolling blackouts. The
| opposition will point out the obvious, Russia can just do it
| again.
| qalmakka wrote:
| It would be pointless for Russia to rest their hopes on Italy
| to break NATO and EU unity - Meloni got fiercely pro-USA
| recently, and unless a miracle happens, Salvini is heading
| towards a total defeat tonight and is all but finished, same
| goes for Berlusconi.
|
| Also, it would be pointless for Italy to go against Europe
| just to get more Russian gas - because in all likelihood it
| would never happen in the first place. Russia can tempt
| Germany to leave Ukraine in the dust and open North Stream 2,
| but Italy gets its Russian gas through a pipeline that goes
| through Ukraine, Austria and Slovenia - anyone but a fool
| would think that the Ukranians would let the Italians get
| away with that. Ukraine can cut Italy's supply in an instant
| if they want.
|
| Italy needs LNG regasification capacity, and it needs it now.
| The only way to get it if FSRUs don't go online in the next
| few months is through the existing pipeline from the
| Netherlands.
| yaddaor wrote:
| Russia is trying to capitalize on this but the current
| EU/NATO consensus on the Ukraine conflict will only
| strengthen even further.
|
| This winter is going to be a very hard time for Russia.
| carlivar wrote:
| What does the far right government have to do with the
| "inevitable collapse"? I'm not choosing sides but if the prior
| government's policies have led to this moment I don't see the
| logic here. I can imagine there are distasteful things about
| such leadership, but I'm curious about the economic and NIMBY
| aspects only.
| qalmakka wrote:
| Italy is not in a situation to pull itself out of its
| problems - it's paralyzed due its chronic political
| instability and its abysmal political class born out of a
| dysfunctional system. While the left isn't that great either,
| the Italian right is among the worst in the continent -
| sleazy, dishonest, without any trace of a program except
| outright lies and the desire to grab power, and reform the
| constitution to establish an authoritarian regime like in
| Hungary.
|
| The truth is that the Italian people have been deeply
| disgruntled with politics for decades, and are only voting
| Meloni this time because they've been cyclically protest
| voting everyone that was in opposition to the last government
| for the last 30 years, since Berlusconi in 1994. People do
| not care a bit about her ideas, and I'd be damned if there's
| more than a single digit percent of her voters that do know a
| single policy she's pushing for. She simply wasn't in
| Draghi's government, so she's not the current establishment.
| If she fails to establish an authoritarian regime in the next
| few years, she'll be destroyed the next election in favour of
| someone else. That's how Italian politics work.
|
| Italy needs access to credit with EU rates and a strong EU in
| general to survive - but replacing a widely respected figure
| (Draghi) with a previously unknown Fascist nostalgic nobody
| really likes is not really a great way to project your
| influence in Brussels - quite the opposite. For instance,
| it's pointless for Italy to push for less sanctions to
| Russia, because the main pipeline that goes from Russia to
| Italy passes through several other countries, including
| Ukraine itself. Italy needs a EU wide NG price cap, fast, or
| it seriously risks social and economic collapse in the
| following months.
|
| About NIMBY: Italy rejected nuclear power due to widespread
| fears after Chernobyl that were capitalized by the corrupt
| political class of the time (a widespread sweep of that
| system happened in 1992 with the Mani Pulite process, but it
| was too late). Since then building ANYTHING in Italy
| immediately causes spontaneous committees of citizens to
| spring up to protest the realization of the aforementioned
| structure, infrastructure or public utility.
|
| For instance, people have protested in recent years:
|
| - against high speed trains, when Italy is a country where
| basically everything goes on polluting diesel trucks. This
| opposition delayed the project for years, but now finally
| Italy has a best in class high speed train service everyone
| loves. Go figure.
|
| - against dumps, waste-to-energy plants, biogas plants, and
| so on. Nobody wants them close to their area, even though
| they have to be built _somewhere_ and Italy has a very high
| population density. Result? Rome is swimming in trash,
| everywhere, with no solution in sight. Italy is paying
| foreign countries to take their rubbish, wasting huge amounts
| of money. Forcing such a project through would mean
| committing a political suicide for any Italian politician.
|
| - against windmills. There are lots of offshore windmill
| farms that can't be built due to them being eyesores. It
| doesn't matter that Italy does need those mills desperately -
| it will still take them 4x the time to be built due to
| basically EVERYONE suing the state at every possible court up
| to the ECHR.
|
| - against NG pipelines and terminals. The mayor of Piombino,
| who ironically is from Brothers of Italy, is ferociously
| opposing docking a FSRU in order to start regasify LNG
| shipped from the US and Qatar, in order to cover for the
| supply reduction of Russian gas. It does not matter that it
| of paramount importance, people are suing the state company
| and thus delaying the process until the courts clear up the
| matter.
|
| The whole thing is worsened by the fact Italians have been
| the target of a deluge of fake news on social and
| conventional media for decades, way before it was a worldwide
| problem. That's how a media moghul such as Berlusconi got
| elected in the '90s/'00s in the first place.
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