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Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

reuters.com

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Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#231

Post by landemva »

nosianu wrote: post #195
landemva wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the perspective from east side of the wall. It was not voted on directly. Like removal of Deutschmark under Köhl, it was done by those governing without direct vote. The people didn't react, so you get what you tolerate.

If you are talking about reunification, we, the East Germans, definitely overwhelmingly wanted it. There was no need for a referendum, I will make that claim. Remaining blocked off by not having any real money (GDR money was useless! Exchange rates, if you could exchange at all, were astronomical when you add the fact that East Germans had very little of even our own money to begin with), after we finally got the wal…

Oh, to clarify -Reunification was needed. I paid that payroll tax in the 1990s!

Russian energy dependence was not voted on. Green (reduce nuke and coal) was enabled by votes for those people.

I think euro would not have been voted in by German people, if they were allowed to vote on d-mark or euro in 1997.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#232

Post by yorwba »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #169
mrtksn wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is not obvious, it's obvious only to zealots. It's kind of obvious that the solution is in PHV and wind energy but you can fight it to death with people who would claim that it's obvious that the solution is Nuclear energy. This is not a good discussion, this is fanatics fighting. Anytime someone suggest simple solution to a big problem %99.9 of the time they don't actually have a simple and obvious solu…

> The solution is not obvious, The problem of relying on Russia for energy was obvious. There isn't a singular "the solution" because there were many possible solutions, nuclear energy being just one. In addition to investing in wind/solar, there are other solutions besides nuclear. Particularly, fracing and coal mining. Both of these are unpopular for obvious reasons (which is the reason everybody talks about nuclea…

> The problem of relying on Russia for energy was obvious.

In 2020, the EU imported 13 786 PJ of natural gas, while gross available energy was 57 767 PJ, i.e. gas imports accounted for 23.9% https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Also in 2020, 27.2% of petroleum gas imports into the EU were from Russia. https://oec.world/en/profile/international_organization/euro...

Put together, 6.5% of gross available energy in the EU was from Russian gas.

It's not so obvious that that is a problematic level of reliance threatening the political autonomy of an entire subcontinent.

If it meant that 6.5% of the population will be left without any energy, that would be quite terrible. If it meant a 6.5% drop in GDP per capita PPP, it would be worse than the drop from 2019 to 2020, but still only throw the EU economy back to 2013 levels.

That doesn't mean it isn't worth planning ahead for the consequences of reduced energy availability, but maybe we don't need to panic, either.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#233

Post by godelski »

sascha_sl wrote: post #182
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…

> as it turns out nuclear power plants require long regular maintenance periods. That's because everyone has been operating their PWRs/BWRs way beyond the design lifespan, which would be fine if we didn't just stop building new ones in the past 20-40 years (depending on country) to prevent too many of them needing regular maintenance at once.

This is something I never understand about the anti-nuclear crowd. There are plenty of good arguments against nuclear but most often the ones used are not that great.[0] I mean we could talk about the expense of them and that they require long-term investments, making them not attractive to bureaucrats and political leaders, which led to the situation of extending lifetimes, losing knowledge, and increasing maintenance periods. Which let's be real, that's a critical flaw if it requires humans to act in ways that aren't what humans typically do. But maybe that's why we always fight. I mean the pro nuclear camp isn't that much better as there are plenty of people arguing for it that don't know the difference between a beta+ and beta- particle.

Then again, the parent says all these things and goes to the culture war. Feels a bit all over the place to me. Though it does seem that a lot of these issues are all caused by us trying to act more intelligent than we are and social signaling. But I don't think that's what the parent was saying.

[0] You could also easily make the argument that we wouldn't be in this mess if Germany didn't shut down their nuclear plants early because doing so increased their dependence on France and Russia for power. But this also isn't that great of an argument.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#234

Post by adventured »

medo-bear wrote: post #138
mjthrowaway1 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The EU made its bed (or more likely, imported it) and now has to sleep in it we should have taken the US more seriously when they said to buy US oil. not wise to piss the US off

I have thoroughly enjoyed the acrobatics required for Europeans that try to blame all of this on the US because they need a scapegoat so as to avoid personal responsibility.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#235

Post by ch4s3 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #223
ch4s3 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make sense now that the pipeline is shut down and Russia is in conflict indirectly with Western Europe?

Hindsight is 20/20. There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical that russia would turn off the tap. There's always counterparty risk when importing things, the US could also decide to cut europe off from LNG if they wanted.

The US has been a stable ally since the end of WWII and really prior for countries other than Germany. It’s also quite hard for a president to just unilaterally suspend trade. US sanctions require acts of congress, and it would be hard to get an anti European majority in the senate. So no, there was never any risk of the US suspending trade.

Meanwhile Russian has almost always been hostile to or at least in competition with Western Europe. Moreover Russia’s Duma follows Putin’s lead.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#236

Post by brabel »

colinmhayes wrote: post #223
ch4s3 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make sense now that the pipeline is shut down and Russia is in conflict indirectly with Western Europe?

Hindsight is 20/20. There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical that russia would turn off the tap. There's always counterparty risk when importing things, the US could also decide to cut europe off from LNG if they wanted.

Russia has only turned off the tap after Europe had already turned off every possible economical tap flowing in the direction of Russia, so in a sense, Europe did it all by itself. Sure, it's the right thing to do for Europe as no one want to help Russia sponsor the war on Ukraine... but that doesn't change the fact that Russia wouldn't just turn off the tap without Europe turning highly hostile to it and basically leaving Russia no option (it's costing much more to Russia than to Europe).

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#238

Post by godelski »

mrtksn wrote: post #151
xienze wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe there's no simple answer for energy issues and countries don't simply build or close down power plants over single issue? Well, two things. One, pretty sure the push to shut down Germany’s nuclear plants was a response to a single issue, Fukushima. Two, one simple answer to this particular situation is to assess your energy independence before sanctioning the country you rely on for natural gas. Germany is ge…

Nuclear power plant construction is flat since Chernobyl and seen slight decline after Fukushima: https://dropover.cloud/ec077b#c8239728-7d32-49ab-98c7-865fb0... Safety concerns are definitely an issue that can nudge you to prefer alternative sources but this doesn't make it single issue. It's simply one of the things you consider. As you can see, despite NPP construction stalling in late 1980s, world energy consumpt…

I think this is mostly due to the fact that the advantage of nuclear is long term and humans -- and especially politicians and bureaucrats -- aren't good at long term planning. Globally we basically rolled out a bunch of nuclear plants and went "welp, that'll hold us off for the next 50-60 years." It's like exercising and eating right for a year and expecting this to keep you healthy for decades as you eat poorly with little to no exercise. Maintenance and continual production is key to cost reduction and advancement but this is something nuclear never got. I really do think nuclear's biggest flaw is its lifespan. Just allows people to get lazy.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#239

Post by abdullahkhalids »

Brusco_RF wrote: post #229
myself248 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The critical detail is that the batteries are configured for standby service, not cycling service, which means that they don't recharge quickly when power comes back on. They're set to a float voltage which maximizes battery service life (years), at the expense of cycle time (hours). The first time power cuts, you might have 8-10 hours to run on battery. But if it comes back on and then goes off again just a few hour…

You missed a critical point that by increasing the charge rate of the battery you've also increased the load on the grid, exacerbating the original problem.

In Pakistan we have had daily blackouts for almost 15 years, though things were better in urban areas recently. Basically, everyone in the middle class has a UPS, with battery to power lights and fans for several hours. Except these are maybe 70-80% efficient. So, yes, the grid has had to deal with, in a very real way, with the increased power demand of millions of households.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#240

Post by marcfr »

scifibestfi wrote: post #139
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…

Ah yes, this is straight from Sun Tzu. Attack thyself. /s

Quite honestly, if a bank robber goes into a bank and shoots himself into his foot, saying: 'now imagine what I could do to you' - I'd be pretty impressed!

Related, an article in the WaPo about this behavior: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r...

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