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Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

reuters.com

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Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#101

Post by rkachowski »

ajross wrote: post #72
scifibestfi wrote: post #61

"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe's decision, Germany especially, to be reliant on Russia for energy when they could have not shut down nuclear plants and built more.

It's upsetting that so many here want to take a genuine (and very scary) international crisis and use it to flog their own personal peeves. Needless to say, "German energy policy of the last two decades" and "Let's Invade Ukraine and Blackmail Europe!" are different decisions , and subject to different analysis. You can have reasonable opinions about both, but if your opposition to Russian adventurism and brinksmansh…

There is of course nuance required, but it's already acknowledged inside and out of Germany that the dependency on Russian gas / nordstream had an effect in bankrolling the aggression against Ukraine. Zelenskyy himself addressed the Bundestag and said as much.

> Why is this possible? When we told you that Nord Stream was a weapon and a preparation for a great war, we heard in response that it was an economy after all. Economy. Economy. But it was cement for a new wall. [1]

[1] https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/promova-prezidenta-ukra...

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#102

Post by ethbr0 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #65
jefftk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: this is the same as when an inch of snow shuts down a warm city and people from cold cities say "we handle worse storms several times a month". People engineer for likely conditions, and those aren't the same everywhere.

Yup. And in most cases it simply doesn't make sense to spend the capital on the preparations. Ex: Atlanta gets roughly 2 inches of snow a year (usually one or two minor snowfalls) and it's far cheaper to simply shut down for a day when it happens than it is to have the infrastructure in place to handle staying open. Every 10 years or so we'll get a big snow, and be down for a week (ex: 2014) and people will freak out…

As someone who lived there for awhile, was going to mention Atlanta too. And I'd assume similar latitude cities like Birmingham, Charlotte, and Dallas?

Cities operate with limited budgets. It does not make financial sense to prepare for some relatively rare events, versus allocating that money to better prepare for likely events.

If Atlanta had a fleet of snowplows, they'd be unused 75% of winters and used for only a couple days in 20%. Bad investment.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#103

Post by barbariangrunge »

scifibestfi wrote: post #61

"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe's decision, Germany especially, to be reliant on Russia for energy when they could have not shut down nuclear plants and built more.

There is a penn and teller episode where they argued that globalization was creating world peace. Basically, when everyone’s economies are so entangled, they said, nobody would want to go to war because of how expensive it would be.

Their model, I think, only works for democracies. When a dictator controls a country, and their quality of life remains unchanged and revolves mostly around delusions of grandeur (like an impetuous monarch centuries ago), that dynamic isn’t enough of a deterrent. It only works when the leadership is sensitive to the well being of the country and it’s people

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#104

Post by systemvoltage »

mjthrowaway1 wrote: post #92
mrtksn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This place started to think in memes I feel. Every issue comes with the automated arguments, the same ones every time. If the topic is energy someone must write the "they shouldn't have closed those Nuclear power plants, silly environmentalist". Anyway, France is full blown nuclear state and they are having energy issues too, because as it turns out nuclear power plants require long regular maintenance periods. Maybe…

While the arguments are repetitive this isn’t a culture war. The EU made its bed (or more likely, imported it) and now has to sleep in it. Deindustrialization has been ongoing.

In California, I get physical mail pamphlets that help me prepare for power outages and what I should do to reduce quality of life. It’s not from PG&E, but our city.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#105

Post by mc32 »

ajross wrote: post #90
m348e912 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question. How did you get to the logical conclusion that Russia is the most likely party that bombed Nordstream?

Quoted post unavailable.

If we're going with that speculation then we could also speculate there is a small likelihood someone doesn't want someone else get cold feet and Kapitulieren in the middle of a bitter cold winter.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#106

Post by dehrmann »

scifibestfi wrote: post #61

"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe's decision, Germany especially, to be reliant on Russia for energy when they could have not shut down nuclear plants and built more.

That quote also mischaracterizes the decision. Cutting gas supplies was retaliation for sanctions. It wasn't really "Russia's decision" as much as it was western Europe's decision to back Ukraine.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#107

Post by Rexxar »

mc32 wrote: post #86
ajross wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's upsetting that so many here want to take a genuine (and very scary) international crisis and use it to flog their own personal peeves. Needless to say, "German energy policy of the last two decades" and "Let's Invade Ukraine and Blackmail Europe!" are different decisions , and subject to different analysis. You can have reasonable opinions about both, but if your opposition to Russian adventurism and brinksmansh…

What's the advantage of blowing up a pipeline over simply shutting the valve when you control the valve AND supply?

Show everybody that you can to it on other pipelines while doing it only on a currently useless one (I answer the question by giving one possible advantage, I have no opinion on the real cause at the moment)

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#108

Post by adambyrtek »

stingraycharles wrote: post #80
yrgulation wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worse than you think. Germany blocked or was against a large number of alternative pipelines and was preparing to actively block nuclear at an eu level.

Why would they do that, what’s their motivation?

So that Gerhard Schröder could get a job at Gazprom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relation...

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#109

Post by throw827474737 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #78
j-pb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Not trying to argue with you, just trying to understand as someone from a neighboring country — could you elaborate a bit more about what happened with the Conservative Party undermining the green energy effort? And how close would Germany realistically have been to being completely self-sufficient by now if that didn’t happen?

Blocking wind power and grid efforts everywhere, stopping planned storage efforts, man we even shut down pump storages etc over the last decades that would be so necessary to have any chance to support and realize base load with renewables. Right now we are shedding cheap bio gas and wind power production again (and that given we build up much too little as we could have) while the power stock exchanges have fun gambling.

On top this constant nuclear narrative, which is not even much significant for current power production, this is all beyond any funny.

Google translate those for few alternstive povs:

https://www.klimareporter.de/strom/deutschland-fackelt-gas-a...

https://www.makawind.de/index.php?show=news

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Pumpspeicherkraftw...

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#110

Post by chess_buster »

stingraycharles wrote: post #78
j-pb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Not trying to argue with you, just trying to understand as someone from a neighboring country — could you elaborate a bit more about what happened with the Conservative Party undermining the green energy effort? And how close would Germany realistically have been to being completely self-sufficient by now if that didn’t happen?

Many things:

* Blocked Biogas by imposing a limit on installed capacity

* blocked solar by imposing a limit on yearly added installed capacity (1GW)

* introduced the so called EEG-Umlage that made storage technologies unprofitable when used to store renewable energy

* introduced a shitshow of bureaucracy to prevent new solar and wind projects from coming online

* introduced another shitshow of bureaucracy to prevent new solar and wind projects from coming online on top of the existing shitshow

* undermine EU law by just not implementing it, for example regarding neighbours giving energy to each other

* introduced redicoulus "Abstandsregeln"/distance regulations, so for example open pit mines that use demolitions have an allowed min distance of 300m and windfarms 1000m

* When China poured billions into the companies forming China's solar industry, while German's companies had no help with their investments and funding

the list goes on and on and on and on...

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