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Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

economist.com

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Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#361

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nradov wrote: post #164
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if an organisation claims to be more competent than the Japanese and and safety-minded too, why can't it persuade an insurer to sell it liability insurance on normal commercial terms, at a justifiable price? It's because nobody else buys that amount of insurance. A hundred billion dollar insurance policy has significant risks and costs to the insurer completely independent of the actual risk of a claim. For one thi…

That's why huge insurance policies are typically syndicated across multiple insurers with reinsurance companies taking on part of the risk.

Reinsurance has nothing to do with it. Lawyers could convince a judge to make the nuclear plant insurance pay out to earthquake victims because no one else can. The increase in the premium from the amortized risk of that happening is the same whether you spread it across other insurance companies or not.

Try going to a major insurance company to get a policy that pays out in the amount of two hundred billion dollars in the event that you're abducted by aliens. If you can get the policy at all, the premium will be unaffordable, and it's not because the insurance company thinks there is a significant probability that you'll actually be abducted by aliens.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#362

Post by tick_tock_tick »

legulere wrote: post #32
mem0r1 wrote: post #6

Not building new nuclear power plants in the last 30 years was a major mistake, in terms of energy supply security as well as CO2 emissions.

That doesn’t make sense. Building new nuclear plants is among the most expensive forms of electricity generation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Assuming that's true so what? Do we have any other choice? What other low carbon options do we have? Germany already has enough wind and solar that it's causing issues on bad weather days. Battery technology needs another decade or two the bare minimum to get close to being viable.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#363

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

hiram112 wrote: post #304
JPKab wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Net exporter" doesn't really matter for the specific conversation at hand. A better way to quantify grid health would be to identify periods of peak demand across northwestern/central Europe, and then tally who is selling power to whom at those inflated prices. I have solar panels on my home, as do most of the homes in my neighborhood. However, we recently had to have a natural gas substation built adjacent to the c…

Just out of curiosity, assuming your internal batteries are charged to the max (e.g. after a sunny day), about how long can you go if it starts snowing or is very cloudy, before you need to start pumping in natural gas? Maybe my understanding of how it all works using your own solar panel and the neighborhood's gas lines is too simplistic, though, to answer.

I don't think the comment you replied to said anything about having batteries?

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#364

Post by ProjectArcturis »

maurycy wrote: post #358
ElFitz wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still remember the teacher in med school showing us how exclusively eating mushrooms and wild boars[1] while living in a poorly ventilated granite house (radon gas) in eastern France still wouldn’t reach the levels of exposure one would get from the soil in some western parts of France. It was enlightening, to say the least. But then, it isn’t really a risk worth taking in any case. [1]: because one can’t just live…

Do you mean the other way around? This map suggests that western France is fine: https://www.wsl.ch/en/2020/07/new-map-for-radioactive-soil-c...

This appears to be a map of just cesium, not all radionuclides.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#365

Post by Gustomaximus »

Factorium wrote: post #71
mem0r1 wrote: post #6

Not building new nuclear power plants in the last 30 years was a major mistake, in terms of energy supply security as well as CO2 emissions.

What about building huge solar plants in Western Sahara and Morocco? The Moroccan Government seems pretty friendly and stable. If we then configure all our electric cars to charge during the day, and discharge from 6pm onwards, we can address a lot of the evening peak.

Isn't offshoring power a major security risk? Terrorists cut the cables or the external nation prioritises power to themself or others in some time of crisis.

I'm all for global trade but as we saw with medical supplies in the early covid days, core services for society to function should to some base minimum be held and produced domestically. I'd think this includes power, medicine and food.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#366

Post by intunderflow »

kzrdude wrote: post #258
hanoz wrote: post #57

Several UK domestic energy suppliers are now on the verge of bankruptcy it seems, and seeking emergency loans from the government. At this time of year almost all of their customers will be many hundreds of pounds in credit with them. That money is supposed to be protected, but still it's a bit of a worry.

Why are the suppliers struggling?

Customers have already agreed their tariff (how much they pay) with the supplier, since a massive spike like this wasn't predicted and the supplier is obligated to keep paying to supply their customers regardless of whether its at a loss some suppliers with limited capital reserves are quickly burning through them.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#367

Post by andai »

pfdietz wrote: post #352
stavros wrote: post #349

Oof, I see a lot of infighting in this thread over whether nuclear or wind/solar is better. It's so sad to see proponents of renewables fight amongst themselves while we keep burning fossil fuels. Can we agree to build as much nuclear AND renewables as we can first, and then fight over which ones to keep after fossil fuels are dead?

Nuclear and renewables don't play well together. It really is an antagonist relationship for fundamental reasons.

Would anyone happen to know what those reasons are?

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#368

Post by korantu »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #314
korantu wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case 'proven' means was ever deployed at scale and worked successfully. Nuclear has track record of decarbonizing entire industrial economy in just 10 years. We dont have storage solution with such track record.

Nuclear has never decarbonized an entire industrial economy, so by that definition, nuclesr is nkt "proven technology". It probably could have, if you priced carbon appropriately 50 or 60 years ago, but no one did so cars and various industrial processes never made the shift and other random things like cow burps it cant even theoretically fix. Now it's too expensive to bother trying even for the bits it's suited to.…

South Korea can build nuclear on time and on budget, so it is possible.

And for the sake of the discussion, I think France can be fairly considered decarbonized, even if not really 100%.

Note that TFA refers to decarbonization of electricity generation only, which is the definition I use as well.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#369

Post by korantu »

pfdietz wrote: post #345
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear has never decarbonized an entire industrial economy, so by that definition, nuclesr is nkt "proven technology". It probably could have, if you priced carbon appropriately 50 or 60 years ago, but no one did so cars and various industrial processes never made the shift and other random things like cow burps it cant even theoretically fix. Now it's too expensive to bother trying even for the bits it's suited to.…

And if you wanted to power the world with nuclear, you'd need breeder reactors or seawater U extraction. Burner reactors powering the world would go through a megaton of natural uranium each year.

Even if we ask South Korea to please build us world of nuclear, it would be long time before uranium would be an issue - it is very small part of overall price.

Re: Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

#370

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #298
pydry wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery backed solar/wind is cheaper than nuclear these days. It's not been that way for long though. Economic grid scale batteries are here but still relatively new. It makes sense to continue running old nuclear plants but not to build new ones. Much too expensive.

Probably. I'll point out using existing natural gas peaking plants to make up for temporary shortfalls of solar and wind power is also a viable stop gap.

The latest US plan aims for a 95% carbon free grid by 2035. They could have aimed for 100%, but it's cheaper to start electrifying more things at that point, as 95% carbon free electricity powering a heat pump is better than burning gas for heat. They therefore get the eqivalent of 105% carbon reduction for the same cost, more than they'd get by focusing on the final 5% of carbon on the grid.
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