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Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

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Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#131

Post by ajmurmann »

TillE wrote: post #77
ajmurmann wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at German power generation at this very moment you will see that they have huge wind and solar capacity, but the energy right now is mainly coming from coal. I'm not sure if I should prefer nuclear or coal to step in in these wind still winter days. Of course more energy storage would be even better.

Wind and solar are still growing in Germany. Wind turbines are a relatively common sight, but pretty sparse. Building nuclear plants even in an ideal fantasy world would be hugely expensive and slow.

Yes, building them would be. However, not shutting the existing once down because we learned that tsunamis can threaten nuclear power plants on the coast is a different story. Don't get me wrong I honestly don't know if nuclear is better than coal, but think it's a viable discussion.

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#132

Post by machiaweliczny »

nkkollaw wrote: post #68

Wow, what's wrong with Poland? I guess they use a lot of coal to produce electricity..?

Nothing is wrong with Poland. If something is wrong then your ability to read presented data.

It doesn't mean we are emitting more CO2 - for all colored map lovers see[1] CO2 emission per capita for Germany or other European countries before jumping to conclusions.

[1]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_per_capita_per_c...

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#134

Post by hnusername »

mixedbit wrote: post #115

Polish right-wing government is blocking any development that could hurt coal industry. They passed the law that significantly constrains where windmills can be located. They also hindered development of solar by reverting the law that allowed individual owners of solar panels to be paid for the overproduced electricity.

Polish government is not right-wing. There may be right wing of it, but it is not right wing per se. Right wing of what? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanation for a better clue about what current polish government may aspire to be like. It may have some right wing parts of what is above all big centrist coalition.

Another issue is. How is this government blocking development that could hurt coal industry any different from what all former polish governments were doing ? But i agree that all those governments are mostly known for their "block everything" attitude.

The website makes my Firefox browser slurp 3GB of memory, renders it unresponsive and it crashes. And please do not color Poland black, if as Wikipedia says (Yes I know. I know). Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless and odorless gas that is vital to life on Earth. Paint Poland and Estonia green. Green as in Greenhouse. Painting it black may suggest some form of blame for some imaginary "pollution" which i hope was not the point of the authors of the site. Or was it ? Come on. Don't make us look like Mordor.

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#135

Post by jsingleton »

This is a very pretty map! It shows that location is important but time is also an interesting domain. You can do your bit by running appliances at the best time. This is a post I made on https://energyuse.eu (part of an EU trial I'm involved with - https://www.decarbonet.eu).

Saving energy in general is a positive step. For example, we've just bought a new freezer and dishwasher with better energy ratings and these will save money over their lifetimes. However, when is the best time to run a wash to save the most CO2e?

Unless you are on an Economy 7 style tariff or have solar panels then when you use power has no effect on how much it costs you. If you are, then at night or in the middle of the day is better, respectively. Dynamic demand to grid signals isn't ready for consumer adoption yet but you can look at the information manually if you want to use power at less demanding times.

The grid frequency[0] is a reasonable indicator but is pretty technical. There are other, easier to understand, data sources available:

- Earth Notes: GB Grid Intensity[1] gives a simple traffic light indication

- GridCarbon[2] is a real-time carbon intensity app (CO2 Modeller[3] is from the same guys)

- MyGridGB[4] shows similar data on the web (and includes Solar data[5])

By avoiding peak time you may not save money but you can save carbon.

[0]: http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/Industry-information/electri...

[1]: http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridCarbonIntensityGB.html

[2]: http://gridcarbon.uk

[3]: http://www.co2modeller.info

[4]: http://www.mygridgb.co.uk

[5]: https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#136

Post by machiaweliczny »

masklinn wrote: post #50
rb808 wrote: post #34

I think the visualization is misleading, it seems to highlight energy mix rather than absolute numbers. eg Poland looks bad but Germany burns twice the amount of coal that Poland does. (Per head of population its probably about the same) Germany looks better because it has some other sources mixed in there.

> it seems to highlight energy mix It's literally a visualisation of how green the country's energy policy is (electricity production sources), the color coding is gCO2/kWh. > rather than absolute numbers Absolute numbers would mostly just track population, that's way more misleading as a small country with sparse population but 100% hydrocarbon energy production would appear greener than a large country with dense p…

Your calculations are wrong:

Population: 38.53 / 80.63 ~= 47,7% More coal sourced: 15.5 / 0.477 / 23.4 ~= 38.8%

38.8% vs 65% makes a difference

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#137

Post by jdietrich »

jonenst wrote: post #83

It's a nice visualization, but cpu usage shoots through the roof ! Deleting the animated arrows between the countries helps a bit, but then it still uses around 50% cpu (and that's on a fast desktop computer. Can't imagine my laptop trying to display this page). Using Ubuntu + firefox (it's a little better with chromium). Is it a problem with this page ? With my setup ? Or is it just impossible to do something of thi…

It runs fine for me on a Celeron-based Chromebook, albeit with 100% usage of one core.

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#138

Post by melling »

jonathansizz wrote: post #128
melling wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind kills lots of birds. http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-... Add 100x the current number and we'll have a big problem. Downvoted to hell because "We don't like what you're saying". Wind has a negative. it's just a fact, not an opinion.

According to the US Fish & Wildlife service, wind turbine deaths are tiny compared with many other human causes. https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds....

Currently there aren't that many wind turbines. I imagine the proposal is to have at least 100x the number to replace all of the fossil fuels. Imagine the planet covered with wind turbines.

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#139

Post by jsingleton »

blondie9x wrote: post #96

This is one of the great things we can do as developers. We can help society learn about the problems humanity faces. Creating amazing visualizations and experiences to educate the world and potentially encourage action to solve some of our biggest problems. Hopefully we can drive awareness and change together.

https://energyuse.eu is an interesting study in how online discussion can help. It's part of an EU trial that I'm on (https://www.decarbonet.eu).

Re: Live display of CO2 emitted to produce electricity in European countries

#140

Post by hokkos »

allendoerfer wrote: post #71
antr wrote: post #63

Germany... your anti-nuclear stance is detrimental to the environment...

At least Germany is not putting its neighbours at risk with rotten nuclear plants. Looking at you, Belgium [0]. Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France [1]. The current situation with coal is bad and we have to solve it. And I know HN is pro nuclear and downvotes opposing opinions, but history has proven several times, that nuclear energy is not a very good option, either. [0] http://www.dw.com/e…

France is to blame when it cleans it for Germany and send it back for storage ?

Lead in the air is one of the effect of massive coal usage in Germany and showing : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11987396

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