[HN Gopher] EU electricity production by country and source
___________________________________________________________________
EU electricity production by country and source
Author : fulafel
Score : 207 points
Date : 2022-11-06 09:28 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (transparency.entsoe.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (transparency.entsoe.eu)
| Reason077 wrote:
| The "ElectricityMaps" app is a great place to see it all in a
| live, visual form:
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
| parminya wrote:
| Why does Canada report information for so few
| provinces/territories? Are they unwilling or unable to collect
| the information?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Some grids are more open than others. ElectricityMap scrapes
| public system operator websites ("ISOs") or government data
| aggregators (US EIA balancing areas or ENTSOE in Europe) for
| their data.
|
| To my knowledge, outside of Europe, there is no data
| reporting requirement, so this is all best effort (but it's
| pretty good for best effort imho).
| neuronic wrote:
| Just saw that OPs linked website is the source for (some of)
| the data displayed there. Really cool.
| sgu999 wrote:
| Australia is so outrageous. So much land, sun, wind, and money
| but no, they'll just use coal thank you.
| [deleted]
| kzrdude wrote:
| Not "just" - that's not painting the whole picture. Go to NSW
| (Australia) on the map. Look at the left hand side panel.
| Look at production during midday - it says 55-60% of power
| comes from solar energy for that time of day.
|
| If you look at the snapshot at the current time (of this
| posting), the sun has gone down and there's less solar power.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
| news/2019/may/29/austr...
| krzyk wrote:
| Coal is cheaper than crating solar panels and storage of
| electricity for them.
|
| Wind has other issues. There is no silver bullet here.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Coal is not cheaper for them. And hasnt been for well over
| a decade.
|
| https://www.csiro.au/-/media/News-
| releases/2022/GenCost-2022...
|
| They just had a government that wanted to funnel money to
| their backers in coal industry.
| Aunche wrote:
| Solar has a much higher upfront cost than coal, so it's
| much easier to finance a coal plant than solar one. That
| said, this is a better excuse for poorer, developing
| countries than Australia.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Yes, the WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital) explains
| why it made financial sense to roll out solar PV in
| northern European countries before many sunnier areas.
|
| But as you say, Australia has no such excuse, having both
| the geography and the cost of capital to be a world
| leader in this, way beyond what they are now, which is
| okay but could have been much, much better.
|
| Also points to an easy way to provide assistance to any
| country that is trapped into this financial dead-end.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| So how much can I buy solar power for at midnight?
| Because coal is the same price at noon and now.
|
| That solar is cheaper at noon doesn't mean much. It's a
| bit like saying that coal is free underground.
| js8 wrote:
| > So how much can I buy solar power for at midnight?
|
| That's a bit like saying that there is no point in
| growing crops in Europe, because of the winter.
| DFHippie wrote:
| Those are different goalposts.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| You're right. We can just turn off society between sunset
| and sunrise. Who needs things like refrigeration and life
| support on all the time anyway?
| DFHippie wrote:
| Let me translate my post: You changed the topic.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| Let me explain my point: power is not energy and energy
| is not power.
|
| Renewable power is cheap in the same way someone whose
| head is dipped in liquid nitrogen and whose feet are in
| molten lead in over all pretty comfortable.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The chart _Figure 2-1 Comparison of current cost
| estimates with previous work_ also has wind power, which
| is also cheaper than coal, and has been for longer than
| solar has.
|
| Plus, Australia has hydro, which can be varied to fill
| the gaps.
|
| > Greater confidence in role of wind and solar PV:
| GenCost previously included a Diverse technology scenario
| which explored the case where deployment of variable
| renewables was more limited and other technologies played
| a larger role. Stakeholder feedback received during
| AEMO's 2020-21 Australian scenario development process
| found that it was unlikely that alternative technologies
| will be able to compete in a significant way with
| renewables. This reflects relatively uncompetitive gas
| prices, a lack of confidence in the future cost
| competitiveness of CCS technologies and abundant low-cost
| renewable resources.
|
| Their 2030 forcasts also include costs for grid
| integration for different percentages of variable
| renewable.
| FBISurveillance wrote:
| There is, nuclear fission now _and_ invest into nuclear
| fusion.
|
| Best time to invest heavily in fusion was 20 years ago,
| second best time is now.
| evilos wrote:
| IMO fission is already plenty for our current/near-term
| energy needs.
|
| We should definitely continue the pace on fusion but it's
| not strictly necessary. We should prioritize deploying
| proven technology ASAP.
| evilos wrote:
| France decarbonized (up to 90% ish) their electricity
| generation in the span of 10 years, back in 1985.
| Unfortunately they've been sabotaging their nuclear power
| plants for years now, in favor of renewable energy.
| AirStreamer27 wrote:
| Genius decision making well done France
| sveme wrote:
| Sabotaging? In what way is a drop in river water levels
| during a summer drought and maintenance issues a kind of
| sabotage?
| evilos wrote:
| Essentially these plants are forced to be unprofitable
| via energy laws.
|
| For example, the nuclear plants are forced to sell their
| energy to energy traders at unprofitable low rates but
| those traders are never required to buy the energy and if
| the price of energy drops below this rate (AFTER it was
| bought) then the traders can just "return" the energy and
| the operators have to eat it. This happened during covid
| when energy prices collapsed due to lack of demand. These
| middlemen profit off of cheap nuclear energy instead of
| rate payers.
|
| In addition, the nuclear plants must pay a 23 euro per
| MWh tax that subsidizes the operation of renewable
| energy. Since the plants are forced to sell their energy
| below cost and subsidize renewable generation, they are
| not profitable and aren't given the proper funds to
| maintain/improve these plants. So then these plants look
| bad/expensive and the ministers in charge demand that
| these plants are closed down before the end of their
| life. Even though the upfront costs have already been
| paid and the electricity they make are far cheaper than
| renewable generation if you don't force these crazy
| disadvantages on them.
|
| Mark Nelson talks about theses problems in this
| interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isgu-VrD0oM
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| some of the recent issues were due to lack of maintenance
| or delayed maintenance during covid
| starfallg wrote:
| Australia has the 3rd largest coal reserves in the world, and
| relatively small population, so economically it makes sense
| for them as upfront investment is lower for coal compared to
| renewables, as a lot of the cost of coal power is in the
| extraction.
|
| Obviously not good for the long-term, nor good for the
| planet, but this is the same driver for coal power also
| (which we indirectly contribute to due to the sheer amount of
| goods they export to the advanced economies).
| howeman wrote:
| Australia has the most installed solar capacity per capita in
| the world, and has installed nearly 4GW of solar in the last
| 12 months alone. They're also making strong moves on battery
| storage
|
| They started behind the curve, but they're moving quickly,
| relatively at least
| pydry wrote:
| Poland is nearly all coal too while Germany is right next
| door and 50% renewable.
| geertj wrote:
| Very sad indeed. Curious if there's any aussies here that can
| share the local perspective.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| Worked in energy as a quant a few years back: the current
| 'greening' of the grid is nothing of the sort. It's just a
| cash grab by creating extreme volatility in energy prices.
| On the right (wrong) days you had swings of $10,000 USD
| within 5 minutes of each other.
|
| The net result was the grid being taken over by the
| government after a series of rolling blackouts in a number
| of states and letting everything rip. All this is was
| directly attributed to _one_ coal station going offline
| unexpectedly and losing the baseload it generated.
|
| I can write a book on how fucked the market here is.
| evilos wrote:
| I just saw a great interview of Robert Parker that
| touched on some of this. Highly recommend the "Decouple"
| podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4mGbTiRC8U
| howeman wrote:
| Any references to read more?
| noibl wrote:
| It's nighttime and there is no wind. That's the downside of
| extrapolating from real-time data.
|
| A couple of highlights from Australia's energy transition
| story in the last few days, which show some of the work
| being done at state level in spite of a largely renewables-
| hostile federal government over the last several years:
|
| > the Western Australia grid ... reached 82 per cent
| renewables for a half-hour period on October 30 ... and it
| is likely that new peak is the highest for any gigawatt-
| scale grid in the world.
|
| > South Australia ... has established the world's highest
| share of renewables - as a percentage of demand - in any
| gigawatt scale grid in the world, when it reached 146 per
| cent on September 14. The excess is, of course, exported to
| the neighbouring state, in this case Victoria.
|
| -- https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-stunning-wind-and-solar-
| leap... [2022-11-04]
|
| > [NSW is seeking] solutions on replacing 10GW of coal
| capacity that is likely to leave the grid within the next
| decade.
|
| > Those plans are being accelerated by fast-tracked
| closures of the main coal generators, including Liddell
| early next year, Eraring in 2025, and Bayswater as early as
| 2030. Vales Point is expected to close by 2029, leaving Mt
| Piper with the only uncertain closure time.
|
| -- https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-formally-declares-its-
| third-... [2022-11-04]
| KyeRussell wrote:
| We had ~10 years of a government in the pocket of fossil
| fuel companies. It's that simple. Our last PM brought a
| piece of coal into parliament as a prop, telling everyone
| that they shouldn't be afraid of it. The bloke genuinely
| took the "let God deal with it" strategy, which is more
| palatable or at least common in the US, but was quite
| jarring here.
|
| With a new government and increased market pressures, the
| tides are turning, quite erratically though, because of
| time/market pressure, mismanagement, incompetence,
| opportunistic capitalists, and whatever else.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| You can burn coal at night.
|
| Turning the sun on at midnight is somewhat more difficult.
| e12e wrote:
| Meh @69 degrees Northern latitude ;) Now, turning the sun
| on in December otoh...
| thrown_22 wrote:
| It's currently midnight in Australia. Please advice on
| how to turn on sun.
| e12e wrote:
| Here it's half past three and the sun set an hour ago -
| and polar night starts on the 28th.
|
| My silly point was mostly that solar has its limits. Here
| we have polar day in summer - so the sun does not set (at
| midnight or otherwise).
| moffkalast wrote:
| Interesting that even on the yearly chart almost all green and
| greenish areas get their 'green' power from hydro and nuclear
| by large. If only wind and solar produced as much power as they
| do talk.
| maccard wrote:
| At least in the UK, wind right now is over 30% of our power
| generation [0]. I don't have links handy but wind regularly
| exceeds most other sources here. How much more do you want it
| to provide before you'd consider it not just talk?
|
| [0] https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
| themitigating wrote:
| Wind and solar power production is based on how much of that
| infrastructure exists. You increase the infrastructure by
| "talking" about it.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Wind & solar are still in their infancy in much of the world,
| but are growing very quickly.
|
| In the UK, wind will overtake natural gas as the largest
| source of electricity in the next few years. It's already
| producing more than 2.5x as much as all the UK's nuclear
| plants combined.
|
| By 2025, more than half of all UK electricity will be
| renewable, and by 2030, 95% will be from low-carbon sources
| (including nuclear).
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| There's several places where you can see the UK's power
| generation live. Right this second we're running on 31%
| wind power. We're just rolling into peak power usage times
| so probably different when you click the link.
|
| https://grid.iamkate.com/
| kibwen wrote:
| Renewable energy installation has broken records for newly-
| installed capacity every year, even during the pandemic-
| induced supply chain chaos and material price instability,
| and is projected to do so this year as well. However, we're
| still quite early into the curve, and even with the
| accelerating rate of growth it will be many years before most
| people are using mostly-renewable power.
| andrepd wrote:
| Hydro is >100yr old technology, nuclear is 75 years old. Wind
| and solar have been viable for what, 25 and 15 years
| respectively?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Both have been around far longer. They've only become
| "viable" in an economic sense due to advances in materials.
| tialaramex wrote:
| If I need (for my small European country) 15 TWh of
| electricity per year, and my typical rainfall onto catchment
| area for hydro is enough to do maybe 10 TWh per year, I'm 5
| TWh short. In the 1980s you'd have probably solved that with
| CCGT, but that means finding or importing methane (natural
| gas). If I also build 10 TWh of wind production, even though
| I can't tell you a year in advance which days it will blow
| hardest, it _will_ blow, and now my total capacity is enough
| to run solid green, because when the wind blows the hydro
| schemes save water to use another day.
|
| Wind production varies year on year, but only maybe 10% where
| the variation day to day is almost 100%. So wind + hydro
| should pair nicely because the hydro plant can ramp up or
| down production as appropriate.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| It sounds good on paper, but sadly it's not trivial in
| those small European countries, Hungary tried that (in the
| 70s), but was blocked due to some political nonsense. https
| ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab%C4%8D%C3%ADkovo%E2%80%93Na...
| pjc50 wrote:
| The renewables buildout is still ongoing, while the nuclear
| and hydro areas were built decades ago. The hydro areas are
| also mostly former glaciated areas, which is a great
| advantage in terms of suitable sites.
|
| The post-first-oil-crash nuclear buildout might have
| continued if it hadn't been for the combination of fossil
| fuel becoming cheap again and Chernobyl fallout covering the
| entirety of northern Europe. The symbolism of Reagan taking
| Carter's solar panels off the White House made it clear that
| wasn't going to be the path.
| Retric wrote:
| The initial nuclear rollout ran into capacity factor
| issues. They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors
| with subsidies and would have needed increasing subsidies
| to become as common as coal. Ultra cheap energy storage
| would have fixed the issue, but nothing was viable at the
| time.
|
| Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar
| tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to
| make that up on the other 16. Meanwhile Solar hits the same
| wall once it needs energy storage.
|
| Hydro ran out of ideal locations in most countries etc
| which is why we have so many different energy sources. The
| only way things hangs is if the underlying economics does.
| Nuclear with an 80% reduction in operating and
| decommissioned costs would largely take over the world.
| pydry wrote:
| >They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors
|
| It never broke even anywhere. It's the most subsidy
| addicted form of power.
|
| >Unfortunately, renewables cause similar issues. If solar
| tanks wholesale prices for 8 hours a day nuclear needs to
| make that up on the other 16.
|
| Wind can make a lot of that up. Solar and wind anti-
| correlate. Those dark, cold winters also tend to be the
| windiest and vice versa.
|
| Apparently we'd need 5 hours of storage to get to a 97%
| carbon free grid under current usage patterns:
| https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-
| renewables-g...
|
| Australia is already on track to have half of that
| already with snowy 2 (350Gwh).
|
| This also doesn't take into account stuff like
| https://octopus.energy/agile/ that can use pricing to
| adjust demand to supply. Heating, car battery charging,
| industrial processes like aluminum smelting - _lots_ of
| demand can be time shifted easily.
| Retric wrote:
| > nuclear needs to make that up on the other 16.
|
| I am specifically referring to a nuclear power plant's
| _income_ here. If they averaged 10c per kWh over a year
| that's X$ /year. To make that same X$/year when wholesale
| prices are 2c/kWh for 8 hours a day they would need to be
| average 14c/kWh for 16 hours to average 10c/kWh over a
| full day. Aka (8 * 2c + 16 * 14c)/24 = 10c
|
| The above is of course a simplification of a complex
| market, but illustrates a real effect related to the
| "duck curve."
| tomatocracy wrote:
| Of course, this is why markets where everyone is forced
| to sell into a single pool don't work. If you let them
| sign a PPA for baseload electricity with a consumer who
| values that certainty (and there are many) for the whole
| year at 10c/kWh then there is no issue.
| Retric wrote:
| Yes and no, PPA don't change the underlying economics. In
| the above model, of batteries added 20c/kWh then Nuclear
| averages cheaper over a full day. If batteries added
| 10c/kWh then Solar ends up cheaper over a full day.
|
| The underlying issue is nobody wants a PPA that lasts for
| the full 40+ year lifespan of a new nuclear reactor and
| battery prices are still falling. Enough subsides can
| make anything viable, but western governments have
| largely lost interest in doing so.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > They barely broke even at 90+% capacity factors
|
| I don't understand this line of argument - that's a high
| capacity factor! And it's not a dirunal or annual one
| either, it's a predictable "we need to shut down to
| refuel" one. It sounds like it wouldn't have broken even,
| even at 100% capacity factor? At which point it's no
| longer "too cheap to meter" but "nuclear power is too
| expensive". And that's before we even dig into capex vs
| opex vs decommissioning vs disaster insurance.
|
| Hinkley point C is guaranteed a price of PS92 per
| megawatt hour (or 9.2p/kWh), when it finally comes
| online.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"Hinkley point C is guaranteed a price of PS92 per
| megawatt hour (or 9.2p /kWh)"_
|
| It's actually PS92.50 in 2012 money, _inflation
| adjusted_.
|
| Given current inflation, the strike price is likely to be
| well over PS160/MWh when it comes online, now estimated
| to be 2027.
|
| (Fun fact: Hinkley Point C is the most expensive power
| plant ever built, anywhere in the world)
| Retric wrote:
| A high capacity factor sounds like a benefit, however
| demand isn't a constant. The perfect power source would
| be capable of running 24/7 but be _profitable_ if run for
| 1 hour a year.
|
| In the electrical industry a base load generation has
| historically been the least valuable electricity and it's
| the only way Nuclear can operate.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Nuclear requires 90%+ of utilization to be competitive.
| They reached a wall once they provide enough power that
| they would have to be cut down for 10% of the time.
|
| What is completely different from solar, that is
| outcompeting everything with ~20% utilization, and making
| the alternatives more expensive on the process... What is
| a problem because it can't provide more than ~20%
| utilization.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Ultra cheap energy storage would have fixed the issue,
| but nothing was viable at the time.
|
| For making nuclear viable, "ultra cheap" here would have
| to be a negative price.
|
| The similarity of the problems with renewables is only
| that they benefit from storage. Without any similarity on
| the economics.
| Retric wrote:
| The negative externalities of fossil fuels justified some
| level of relative subsidies. Either by taxing pollution
| or direct subsidies of nuclear power.
|
| Even ignoring global warming smog and acid rain have been
| known issues for a very long time. On top of this many
| countries lacked domestic supplies of fossil fuels.
| andrepd wrote:
| >Chernobyl fallout covering the entirety of northern Europe
|
| Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
| pjc50 wrote:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-36112372
| moffkalast wrote:
| Just a correction, those weren't solar panels on the White
| House, they were solar water heaters.
| andrepd wrote:
| Even that was too much for ol Ronnie x)
| kergonath wrote:
| The correction is incorrect. Thermal solar panels are
| still solar panels, even though they are not PV panels.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| And a chinese billionaire who started with solar water
| heaters and moved into PV has them on display in his
| solar power museum.
|
| _Where did the Carter White House Solar Panels go?_
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-
| hous...
| Thlom wrote:
| It does, sometimes, causing electricity price to go negative.
|
| This summer our local Hydro dam was full. But instead of
| generating electricity at full capacity they had to open the
| overflow valves because it was windy and the local wind farm
| was producing at full capacity and the transmission lines
| does not have capacity to handle both wind and hydro at full
| capacity.
|
| Our price was hovering around 0 all summer.
| b4je7d7wb wrote:
| It would be an environmental disaster if someone mined
| bitcoin there.
| brnt wrote:
| I clicked on two green countries at random and they both
| showed wind to be the top producer. Are we looking at the
| same map?
| beberlei wrote:
| I find your statement is slightly misleading, when there are
| just barely two handful green countries over the whole year
| and half of them have wind energy with at least 30% share, a
| few even as primary source.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| US pacific northwest hydropower FTW. Roll on Columbia roll on
| hokkos wrote:
| I built https://energygraph.info based partially on ENTSO-E data,
| it uses grafana and a custom plug-in for the maps, focused on
| French nuclear and European eletricity with flow, day ahead
| prices and live and cumulative production by type or individual
| units.
| belter wrote:
| Great work. Interesting site.
|
| I find it stunning that Germany, a country that according to
| Wikipedia has about the same solar potential as Alaska,
| produced 16,4GW ! from Solar, this last 2 November.
| affgrff2 wrote:
| Does solar potential take into account the total area of the
| country?
| layer8 wrote:
| As far as I can tell, the comparison is made based on the
| average number of sun hours per day, which is about 3 for
| both Germany and Alaska. I'm not sure that "sun hours" is a
| sensible measure for solar potential, but if it is, the
| energy produced would be proportional to the area utilized
| for solar panels.
| jphsnsir wrote:
| The residential solar which is immediately used by the house, is
| it counted in this table?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| No
| tinco wrote:
| No, and keep in mind the map paints a much rosier picture than
| reality if you're concerned about climate. Just grid electrity
| is but a fraction of total energy use, and nearly all other
| energy is gathered from burning gas, oil and coal.
| shapefrog wrote:
| I am always (plesantly) suprised to see just how high the amount
| of renewables are. It really is quite contrary to the naratives -
| on both sides of the debate.
|
| Huge progress has been made over not that long a timeline, if
| nothing more than diversifying the sources of power. More can be
| done but it is impressive all the same.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| It's still too little too late. In Spain we still burn a lot of
| gas. In the last 12m gas was the main source of electricity.
|
| And then it's everything which isn't electricity. For a more
| clear picture, look for sankey diagrams like this one [1],
| which shows how electricity is actually a small part of the
| equation.
|
| [1]
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/sankey/energy/sankey.htm...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| That diagram only shows waste heat when converting to
| electricity.
|
| So if fossil fuels get converted to electricity it shows the
| roughly 50% loss, but if they're used in cars it doesn't show
| the 80% loss.
|
| Electrifying everything makes a big difference, so much so
| that people quoting primary energy figures rather than final
| energy (the stuff we actually use to do stuff) are liars.
|
| And this diagram, which is misrepresenting transport fuel as
| if it was final energy is also misleading for similar
| reasons.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > It's still too little too late.
|
| Thats what the activist blockading my commuter train was
| hysterically screaming too.
|
| When you are packed 3 deep and 3 high on an electic train
| being screamed at that you are personally destroying the
| planet (by taking this train to work?) it brings the climate
| wars home.
| andrepd wrote:
| I'm highly skeptical of your story. I'm 99.9% even the most
| tone-deaf activist would not block an electric train, if
| the objective of their campaign is to replace cars with
| trains and bikes. I find this hard to believe.
|
| Plus, how do you even blockade a train?
| blitzar wrote:
| You jump on the roof while your fellow activist glue
| their hand to the side. 14% of those activists polled
| were down with it, not 0.01%.
|
| "A poll on the Extinction Rebellion Telegram chat showed
| 86 per cent of members were against action targeting the
| London Underground. Just 4 per cent approved of the
| action, while 7 per cent approved if they could be sure
| trains wouldn't get blocked underground."
|
| https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-angry-
| commute...
|
| These ones actually managed to get the glue on...
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47946205
| andrepd wrote:
| Well I stand corrected. How do people like this even
| exist. What's the deal here, false flag or useful idiots?
| blitzar wrote:
| I believe the _idea_ was that the commuters were going to
| jobs that destroyed the planet. I can only assume that
| philosophically they were ok with people taking public
| transport to work, but they disapproved of the jobs they
| were going to.
| Joeri wrote:
| To add context, in greta's climate book there's a whole
| narrative on how the climate and sustainability crisis is
| a consequence of the current global economic model that
| incentivizes consumption and growth, so people that are
| on their way to the financial district and therefore
| probably work to support that model would be considered
| enemies of the planet by those activists. Their mode of
| transportation would be immaterial to that.
|
| They're not in favor of communism either by the way, they
| want the global economic system reformed to become
| sustainable and they consider the job of doing that a
| responsibility of the powers that be.
| moooo99 wrote:
| > When you are packed 3 deep and 3 high on an electic train
| being screamed at that you are personally destroying the
| planet (by taking this train to work?) it brings the
| climate wars home.
|
| Had the displeasure of meeting some of those activists as
| well. While I don't support their means of protest (in
| Germany the constantly glue themselves onto the street) I
| understand their message. However, considering the
| activists blocked a packed tram line that is powered
| exclusively by renewables, I'm not sure if they themselves
| understand the issues completely.
| shapefrog wrote:
| Gluing yourself to a tram or the street in 2022 is having
| zero (positive) effect. The transition from fossil fuel
| to electrictiy and clean forms of electricity has been
| happening for a decade plus now - maybe the greenpeacer
| of the late 90's can legitimately claim credit. No policy
| maker is seeing these activists at work and changing
| their mind about anything.
|
| The offshore wind farm opening in 2023 is not a product
| of that activist gluing themselves to something, and the
| one planned for 10 years from now is not either. The
| train, towards clean electricity and near zero oil is in
| motion, has been for quite some time, and the only
| question is how fast it is travelling.
|
| I would love to see it move faster, and certainly anyone
| actually pulling the strings of investment are looking at
| a coventional power plant vs renewables and throwing
| their money at renewables faster than people can take it.
| It is only amongst the chattering masses and everyone
| having their voice heard on twitter that there is much
| debate.
| cauch wrote:
| Hm, I'm not on the side of those annoying activists, but
| I think your assertions have no ground.
|
| Existence of "extremists" usually helps "moderates" make
| things change. Without the "extremists", the "moderates"
| ARE the "extremists" and will not be taken seriously. It
| reminds me of how without the Black Panther Party, some
| white moderates would have not accepted propositions from
| Martin Luther King.
|
| I think that wind farms and renewables would not be there
| if there was no pressure from extremists that helped
| deciders realize that wind farms and renewables are not
| just a whim from few ecologists.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > the greenpeacer of the late 90's can legitimately claim
| credit
|
| They were swiming against the tide - today they are
| swiming with a pretty rapidly moving current.
|
| > wind farms and renewables would not be there if there
| was no pressure from extremists
|
| Wind farms and renewables that exist today because
| someone in June 2022 glued their hand to a road. They are
| the product of research and development and planning
| under corporations and governments 3/4/5 leaders ago. In
| the context of the UK - 2014 for consent to build Hornsea
| which started delivering power in 2020. With each
| successful phase they keep asking to build more, it is
| the success of the project that had them proposing part 2
| and now in 2022 part 3. The person glued to the pavement
| can claim Hornsea 3 is their doing but _personally_ I
| dont think they are moving the needle at all.
|
| If you could build a wind farm, and sell off 50% of the
| interest in the project for what it cost to build - you
| would be planning the next one as well.
|
| https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/03/28/orsted-divesting-
| hal...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsea_Wind_Farm
| cauch wrote:
| Nobody is pretending that today's wind farms are the
| result of someone gluing their hand to a road in June
| 2022 (the fact that you are framing the discussion as if
| it is the case is not a good start). But it is incorrect
| to say that it's obvious wind farms would have happened
| without people doing similar things in their time. Maybe
| you are too young, but people doing similar things as
| people gluing their hands today existed way before 2014.
|
| You take Hornsea, it is a good example: projects from
| industry in UK existed for a long time, but were unlocked
| only due to European Union promotion and subsidies for
| renewable energy, which itself would not have existed
| without the need for Germany to boost renewable because
| they decided to go out of nuclear, because of the
| ecologist protests in 1980-1990. Hornsea is the result of
| the 2010 European Union push for 20% renewable, and would
| not have existed (at least not as early) otherwise,
| because EU funding was, obviously, a really good
| incentive. Before that, there were wind power industry
| pushing for projects in UK (such wind power industry
| groups exists since 1970), but they were not very often
| taken on board by the UK government. Also, Hornsea has
| deemed economically profitable because it used efficient
| technology created due to the push for renewable that was
| in general a political move due to pressure of ecologist
| protests.
| cauch wrote:
| Having annoying activists is unavoidable, especially as
| long as we also have climate change deniers or climate
| emergency underestimaters, and therefore, we should learn
| to not be deterred to still do the right thing.
|
| People opinions on what actions are probably similar to
| Gaussian curves, with two consequences: 1) you may be
| situated on the mean value, but you may not, and you have
| almost no way to know (personal assessments are so biased
| they are worth nothing) 2) it is unrealistic to expect that
| no one will exist on the left or on the right of you. There
| will always be annoying people that will go too far. As
| long as those are agreeing on the climate emergency
| problem, considering that they are a problem that need to
| be solved is just a waste of time. Just live with it.
|
| If it makes you feel better, you may even consider that the
| existence of those annoying activists is the consequence of
| the lack of action of people who are downplaying the
| climate change emergency. If the second ones don't exist,
| the first ones would not exist too.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| So what? is having annoying activists make it less true?
| shapefrog wrote:
| you are personally destroying the planet
| telmo wrote:
| People will grasp at anything to avoid confronting harsh
| truths and personal responsibility.
|
| We are facing an existential threat to civilization
| itself, but some kids have thrown some soup at a painting
| so I guess our hands are tied now...
| Krasnol wrote:
| Hard to imagine how far Germany could have been today if they
| weren't trapped for 16 years by a party which did everything it
| could to stop renewable expansion. Crippling the national
| industry and selling it out to China this way.
| jussij wrote:
| I suspect that might b the same story in a few other
| countries around the world. Here in Australia, we had a
| decade of these 'climate wars'.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I'm sure it is and it will continue to be since renewable
| energy has become some "evil tool" of the eco/leftist-
| conspiracy for the international-anti-intellectual bubble.
| parminya wrote:
| Time didn't stop in the pandemic. The 2007 election was
| fought on the topic of a carbon transition. It's at least a
| decade and a half, and the anti-transition side hasn't
| given up yet so it's still ongoing. If the Andrews
| government is returned it may be the beginning of the end
| with their proposal for a renewables oriented renewed SEC,
| but it won't be the end for the country as a whole.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Don't forget this is only _electrical_ tough.
|
| This has been pretty well known in my country at least.
|
| However, the full picture isn't so glamorous once you take all
| energy types into account.
|
| But I agree with you that generally too much panic is being
| created.
| shapefrog wrote:
| Many people are saying, "but it is only electricity".
|
| Of course, however, is there anything where the conversion
| has been from electic to petrol / gas / coal? My car is going
| electic, my bolier is going electric. This isnt new, it has
| been the path of travel for a while now.
|
| Unless Nvidia has really f'd up their calculations my 5090
| graphics card isnt going to be coal powered.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| That's fine for your home, but not when you extend your
| gaze to where all those items are actually produced:
| Industries.
| exact_string wrote:
| I think the point of "But it is only electricity" means
| that _currently_ the situation is not as good as one might
| think based on electricity production.
| shapefrog wrote:
| To quote from elsewhere.
|
| "Coal-fired power stations emit over 10 Gt of carbon
| dioxide each year,[4] about one fifth of world greenhouse
| gas emissions, so are the single largest cause of climate
| change"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-fired_power_station
|
| The counter factual; if the 60% of electricity coming
| form wind or sunshine at this instant was from coal, then
| 10 Gt of carbon dioxide each year becomes 20/30/40/50 Gt
| of carbon dioxide each year and global emmisions are
| significantly more than what they are now.
|
| Purely hypothetical, but it is where _we_ were.
| maccard wrote:
| > But I agree with you that generally too much panic is being
| created.
|
| Unfortunately without the panic we wouldn't have even gotten
| where we are. The last decade's progress has been excellent,
| but there was 20 years of stagnation before that. The latest
| nuclear plant that was opened in the UK was in 1995, and
| we've not successfully built another since. Meanwhile gas
| plants have served their entire lifecycle and been
| decommissioned in that time frame, and are still actively
| being built (but thankfully no longer planned).
|
| > However, the full picture isn't so glamorous once you take
| all energy types into account
|
| Why not? Electricity is one of the biggest of energy, and is
| growing as transport (which is the second largest source of
| energy usage) is electrifying. Cleaning our electricity
| sources and moving our largest polluters to electricity is a
| great path forward. Theres no silver bullet here but what
| we're doing is pretty much the biggest impact we can make. We
| should have done it 20 years ago, and we should be doing it
| quicker now though.
|
| The next biggest source of emissions is from agriculture,
| mostly from deforestation and oversimplifying for the sake of
| an internet comment, if the EU, China and the US just ate
| less beef, that problem would mostly solve itself.
| melling wrote:
| There are only 8500 coal power plants in the world generating
| 20% of all emissions.
|
| "Coal-fired power stations emit over 10 Gt of carbon dioxide
| each year,[4] about one fifth of world greenhouse gas
| emissions, so are the single largest cause of climate change"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-fired_power_station
|
| Half of them were built in the past 20 years?
|
| And we subsidize the industry.
|
| "In 2020 the coal industry was subsidized $US18 billion"
|
| I'm always surprised that we haven't replaced all of them with
| green energy.
| badpun wrote:
| Why are you surprised?
| melling wrote:
| Because it seems like such an obvious problem to solve.
|
| 100Gt of emissions every decade. Coal is also quite
| polluting and no one wants to live near a coal energy
| plant.
|
| Those 8500 plants actually move the needle and accelerate
| climate change by a significant amount.
| headsoup wrote:
| I only guess because renewables don't yet provide a solid
| base load power guarantee around the clock in all weather
| types.
|
| The obvious solution is not having so much demand, but we
| all want to have that cake and eat it.
| melling wrote:
| We are half a century into the climate change problem.
|
| How about some better answers?
|
| It appears we've completely missed the initial goals and
| will experience a larger temperature increase.
|
| 100 million barrels of oil a day. Fossil fuels producing
| 84% of our energy needs.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2020/06/20/bp-
| review-ne...
| inkblotuniverse wrote:
| You're welcome to downscale; china won't.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| With wind and solar we apparently only need 3 days of
| storage. For median household thats about 3x29kwh. It
| costs 87kwh*150$/kwh=13,050$ to produce such battery (tho
| sell it at about 5x markup). Given property prices and
| how much it costs to upgrade grid, small residential
| batteries is no brainer.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Take a look at global coal consumption (almost entirely
| driven by China, the world's leading manufacturer of solar
| panels and a leading adopter of wind power) - https://en.wiki
| pedia.org/wiki/File:World_Coal_Consumption.sv... - and it's
| at record highs again this year.
|
| Look at what happened in last ~20-30 years during which time
| the "green" movement was insisting that nuclear is too late,
| too costly, and renewables are the better solution to climate
| change, and that coal can not possibly compete with
| renewables and coal is dead and coal infrastructure are
| stranded assets.
|
| The reality of the situation is that renewables can't even
| keep up, let alone reduce global greenhouse gas emissions,
| that coal is still one of the cheapest ways to generate
| power. And after China we still have half the world's
| population hasn't even started its energy consumption
| S-curve.
|
| The people who thought fossil fuels were done for and
| renewables would just magically kill them and solve the
| problem -- with no need to look at serious investment in
| nuclear and hydro and real carbon pricing -- were lied to by
| fossil-fuel backed "green" propaganda.
| Matumio wrote:
| That's also my impression, there is a lot of progress these
| days. Though, to protect that optimism, don't look up the
| annual world CO2 emissions.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > don't look up the annual world CO2 emissions.
|
| They look bad, but certainly the rate of badness is nowhere
| close to what it once was - if post pandemic emissions are
| not horrific, then you can make the case that the upward
| trend is broken.
| baybal2 wrote:
| boshomi wrote:
| An alternative source from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar
| Energy Systems ISE:
|
| - DE: electricity generation by source: https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&...
|
| - FR: Electricity production and spot prices https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/price_spot_market/chart.ht...
|
| - NL: Annual electricity spot market prices https://energy-
| charts.info/charts/price_average/chart.htm?l=...
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| how are people who have rooftop solar in the EU facing the
| electricity crunch against people who don't have that?
| cinntaile wrote:
| People with rooftop solar are generally richer than those who
| don't have rooftop solar so they should weather the rise in
| prices better regardless.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| sure, someone who can afford a car should be able to afford
| 1-3-5 kwh panels, right? btw, do you know how much it costs
| for a 1kwh or a 5kwh panel + inverter?
| lultimouomo wrote:
| The question is more whether a) they can afford a roof to
| put those panels on, or they actually live in a flat (most
| people in the EU) or rent it out and b) they can afford a
| car AND the panels, if the car is more or less a necessity
| for their daily lives, which is often is (not always, I
| think cars are overused even in Europe)
| jvdvegt wrote:
| I've just bought 4800kWh solar panels (12*400Wp) and a
| converter with installation on a flat roof for about EUR
| 7500.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| wow.. after subsidies, i paid for 5120Wp panel + 5kwh
| inverter+installation+earthing for EUR 2222 approx 2
| years ago.
| perlgeek wrote:
| A rough rule of thumb is about 1 EUR per 1W of nominal /
| peak power output if you buy the parts yourself and handle
| installation, a bit more if you pay for installation as
| well.
|
| This is from Germany, I hear prices differ a bit between EU
| countries.
| perlgeek wrote:
| In general, higher electricity prices mean that rooftop solar
| amortizes faster, since you save more per kWh that you don't
| have to purchase from the supplier.
|
| Rates for feed electricity into the grid vary widely within the
| EU, for example in Germany it's around 6-7ct/kWh for home
| rooftop solar, in Belgium it depends on the energy company, but
| goes up to 40ct.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| you can use that in home without selling to the grid, can't
| you?
| perlgeek wrote:
| You basically have these options:
|
| * connect your solar to the grid, sell off the excess
| (default for larger installations)
|
| * connect your solar to the grid, donate the excess to the
| grid (easier from the paperwork perspective, doable for
| very small installations)
|
| * have an "island" installation that's not connected to the
| main grid, move some devices to that island (you need two
| separate circuits, need to manage which device to put on
| which circuit)
|
| * go fully island / off-grid (you only need one circuit,
| but need battery and enough power generation to go through
| the winter all by yourself)
|
| The first two are definitively easier, the latter two only
| for real tinkerers / enthusiasts. So unless you count the
| latter two, the alternative to selling to the grid is
| donating the excess to the grid.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| https://www.phocos.com/product/psw-h-hybrid-inverter-
| charger...
|
| i own this solar inverter and i get to use on-grid mode
| when the grid is live during the day and if grid goes
| dark for any reason, i cut off supply outside and use the
| solar for home use WITHOUT BATTERIES. Been running this
| at home for 2 years now, 5 KWH inverter, 5.3 (i think)
| panels
| reportingsjr wrote:
| This seems to big missing a major option: * Connect your
| solar to the grid, but also to a local battery. Charge
| the battery with excess solar until battery is full, then
| sell/donate excess.
|
| This has really started to become a viable option with
| solar panel prices being so low and battery prices
| (particularly lithium iron phosphate) dropping
| significantly in the last few years.
|
| Unless this isn't a legal method anywhere in the EU, but
| I highly doubt that.
| bbu wrote:
| The additional cost for the battery etc. makes this a
| less desirable solution. Meaning you won't make up the
| money you invest.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Up here in Lithuania we "store" excess power in grid and
| then pay a little for transmission when getting it back.
| Dunno exactly, but selling might be better since power is
| cheaper at night (but given current events - more
| expensive in winter).
| synu wrote:
| Watching the war in Ukraine, it seems like distributed local
| generation should be a significant part of the mix for national
| security reasons.
| the8472 wrote:
| some of that as an interactive map:
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR
| bogdanu wrote:
| It's not accurate, at least for RO. According to an official
| site, 32% of our electricity comes from wind since yesterday.
| On this site it says it's 0.5%
| carlosbaraza wrote:
| This is great. Incredible to see how many countries still
| greatly depend on coal as a key source of energy, including the
| US. Macro trends that take hundreds of years to fade out.
| crypt1d wrote:
| Title is slightly misleading, as the linked website also includes
| data from European countries which are not in the EU (ie, Serbia,
| North Macedonia, Bosnia, etc).
| Tade0 wrote:
| For a more visual overview I recommend:
|
| https://www.electricitymaps.com/
|
| Recently they added a feature enabling the users to see
| production data per country on a monthly basis.
|
| From that you can see that France still hasn't recovered in terms
| of nuclear power generation capacity and that, along with high
| natural gas prices was the perfect storm that caused electricity
| prices to skyrocket.
|
| They're restarting as we speak and the effect on prices is
| already visible.
| locallost wrote:
| Unfortunately the EdF revised their production targets down
| again, so we are a long way off.
|
| https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...
| Tade0 wrote:
| Good to know. Well, better safe than sorry I guess.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Do they have a way to select map colors? I'd like to see one
| where the color/legend refers to electricity prices, not CO2
| intensity
| Tade0 wrote:
| Nope. But the project is open-source so potentially you could
| implement this yourself:
|
| https://github.com/electricitymaps/electricitymaps-contrib
| _joel wrote:
| Given the UK may be having rolling blackouts (fwiw, more
| curiosity) I've been keeping an eye on this
| https://grid.iamkate.com/ - nice little dashboard.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| The website is funny. They call themselves "transparency
| platform" and they even got a .eu domain. Yet their cookie
| consent popup is so not GDPR conform, because it only has an
| "accept" button and not reject button at all.
|
| Fortunately trusty ol' element zapper gets rid of this and one
| can still look at the actual content one came for.
| smallerfish wrote:
| If you have two of the same type of chart on a dashboard, _most
| likely_ you want the scale of the y axis to be the same on both
| (unless you very clearly call out the difference). When I land on
| this I get an "Actual Generation..." chart for Spain and Germany.
| Each chart is individually scaled, so the largest bars come to
| around 90ish% on the y axis, but in actual fact Germany's output
| is roughly (eyeballing it) 2x that of Spain's.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| This is awesome data!! Is there an API folks can use to access
| this data some ML testing?
|
| Would be interested to see how production (and demand) and
| weather overlap.
| c-fe wrote:
| entsoe has an API but its horrible XML code. I tried to work
| with it but just gave up at some point, too painful. I would
| recommend entsoe_py if you are using python, its pandas-based
| and does not contain all entsoe functionality but much more
| pleasant to work with
| hokkos wrote:
| Just use the csv data, way simpler.
| skagenpilot wrote:
| On the production side, renewable production is fully
| influenced by weather and this influences also the other means
| of production as renewables have "priority" on the grid.
|
| On the demand side, it depends on how people heat (or cool)
| their home. In France, there is a lot of electrical heating and
| the partial dependency between temperature and demand is very
| well understood (and visible in the data). In countries where
| they rely more on gas story is different.
|
| A good way to study these dependencies is to do load
| forecasting with white box models such as General Additive
| Models [1][2], you get the full picture of partial dependencies
| between your input variables and target variable.
|
| [1] https://www.slideshare.net/cornec/adaptive-gam-12058258 [2]
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260448958_Short-Ter...
| alfor wrote:
| Way more solar and wind than I thought.
|
| It seems Tony Seba is right. With batteries and EV they will
| displace everything else.
|
| Not that nuclear is evil on anything, but I don't see how it will
| compete on price.
|
| (I understand the need for baseload, stability, keep what works,
| etc)
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Tony has a new series of videos out this week, in which he
| basically says, told you so:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7vhMcKvHo8
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > Not that nuclear is evil on anything, but I don't see how it
| will compete on price.
|
| What's the timeframe until we get 100% renewable? until then,
| nuclear will be needed and won't have to compete on price.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| "The roadmaps envision 80% conversion by 2030 and 100% by
| 2050." [1] [2]
|
| Extrapolate out renewable and battery storage uptake rates.
| You won't get the first kWh from a nuclear plant you start
| building today for at least a decade. Nuclear will have to
| compete on price so long as someone has to pay for it.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17998672
|
| [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243
| 511...
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