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Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

reuters.com

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Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#421

Post by NoLinkToMe »

Scarblac wrote: post #209
slashdev wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Europe should resume drilling in the North Sea and Groningen if they have exploitable reserves there. Europe depends on energy imports and that won't change in our lifetimes (I'm in my early forties, so at least in my lifetime.) They should take advantage of whatever resources they have. I'm guessing you think otherwise? Why? Do you think the energy transition will be faster? What makes you think that?

Because the continued survival of civilization depends on leaving fossil fuel in the ground. If the transition isn't fast enough then we will have horrible, lethal shortages, but that's still better than the worst climate scenarios.

Closing Groningen didn't leave fossil in the ground. It took LNG from US and gas from Norway out of the ground instead.

The decision to stop using fossil fuels is not tied to the decision to stop one of the sources of fossil fuels. They're divorced.

Stopping fossil fuels requires investments in alternatives, and price mechanisms that disfavour fossils. Absent those mechanisms, closing one source of fossil just shifts demand to another source of fossil, which is exactly what happened.

Meanwhile closing the gas source cost the NL a few hundred billion euros, the amount of money it needs to transition to renewables. Instead it is spending that on US LNG and Norwegian gas.

The field shouldn't have been closed in 2023, it should've remained open until e.g. 2030 and all proceeds earmarked for massive energy transition subsidies. Instead we're just importing expensive fossil now and have insufficient money to meet our green ambitions.

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#422

Post by NoLinkToMe »

Chyzwar wrote: post #17
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #2

Yeah, I live in Spain and probably once again we'll have restrictions on AC in the summer just like at the start of the Ukraine war. Hopefully, we can avoid actual blackouts. The bizarre thing is that our government still wants to close down the remaining nuclear power plants. One of the issues with our proportional electoral system is that smaller, more extreme parties can become kingmakers and in our current situat…

Levelized Cost of Energy for solar is 30-60$ and 100-200$ for nuclear. In the case of Spain, it is cheaper to build more energy lines with Morocco and battery storage than to use nuclear. Spain already has some of the cheapest energy in Europe thanks to renewables. In the case of Germany, nuclear makes sense, but it is not clear where you would buy fuel for it, It might still be a supply chain risk since Russia and K…

> Levelized Cost of Energy for solar is 30-60$ and 100-200$ for nuclear. In the case of Spain, it is cheaper to build more energy lines with Morocco and battery storage than to use nuclear.

But keeping nuclear open is an entirely different thing than building out more nuclear. OP was talking about the former, you about the latter.

Otherwise agreed on your point.

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#423

Post by watwut »

tac19 wrote: post #185
davedx wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been arguing with Europeans on twitter (including an environmental scientist) who believe this war shows we need to resume drilling in the North Sea and Groningen. It feels like this collective insanity will never end

> It feels like this collective insanity will never end They simply do not believe that the consequences will be as bad as the models predict. And a lot of trust and good will has been expended on social issues, for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc. As a strategic decision, we have taken our eye off the ball, climate…

> the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose, or to promote childhood reassignment surgery, etc.

This is entirely made up right wing hysteria. Complain to them for beating that drum constantly, because the more people hate the more they vote for them.

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#424

Post by watwut »

rawgabbit wrote: post #343
empyrrhicist wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like this obsession is almost entirely on the right wing. In the US, the centrist Dems have been banging the appeasement drum for my entire political life, and it's gotten us nowhere. Like... the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if eve…

The reality is that the US is divided on gender issues. Full stop. It is a distraction and a useful one for MAGA. Among the Democrats, we keep getting tripped up by it and nominate candidates who don't realize the political land mine that it is. I am for gender equality, for racial equality, for renewables, for nuclear energy. But please win the election by prioritizing talking about jobs, jobs, jobs, economic disopp…

Democrats were NOT talking about transgender issues. Conservatives were.

Democrats talking about jobs, economic disopportunity, and naked corruption gets no votes, because republican voters are not motivated by those. They are using those as talking point against democrats, but that is about it.

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#425

Post by watwut »

lelanthran wrote: post #326
empyrrhicist wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example the fight to allow transgender people to use whatever bathroom they choose Ugh, I'm going to regret commenting here, but it really seems like this obsession is almost entirely on the right wing. In the US, the centrist Dems have been banging the appeasement drum for my entire political life, and it's gotten us nowhere. Like... the right isn't going to wake up and start caring about climate change if eve…

> In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed? I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person? Trans rights ain't even that popular; most people are okay with "you th…

> I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person?

Literally conservatives did that. THEY made this focus of the debate. Democrats reaction do not even matter here. It is ultimately irrelevant, because people like you then obsess over imaginary democrats positions democratic party never really had.

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#426

Post by leonidasrup »

ryukafalz wrote: post #44

As someone who's been pushing for renewables for quite a while now it's dismaying that it's taken a war to accelerate this push, but I'm glad to see that it's happening at least. It's doubly dismaying that my own country (US) is still doubling down on fossil fuels despite everything. The concern about a new dependency on China is real, but renewables do have the advantage that once you have the infrastructure in plac…

Germany is very slowly starting to understand, exiting nuclear power and installing a lot of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar power, does not make your country independent of fossil fuels.

China builds a lot of renewables, but they don't build them to replace fossil fuels, they build them in addition to fossil fuels. We should absolutely not follow this way.

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#427

Post by mhb »

krapp wrote: post #157
manyaoman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that back in 2024 Kamala didn't exactly come across as a much better option, although in hindsight she likely would have been.

Kamala was always obviously a better option than Trump. Let's not pretend people didn't know who and what Trump was, or that his behavior after 2024 came as a shock to anyone.

Nonetheless all the people in the Democratic party who could obviously see what a disaster Trump would be weren't willing to compromise on any of their insane policy positions or run someone more than a midwit in order to avoid a Trump victory.

All they had to do to avoid this obvious disaster was moderate some of their extreme positions and run someone who could speak coherently and yet they couldn't do it.

So is the conclusion that it wasn't so obvious or something else?

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#428

Post by arnoooooo »

guyomes wrote: post #372
esperent wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there was somewhere I could talk about world affairs and European affairs with reasonable people, the way I can talk about tech on HN. But anywhere I've tried - Twitter, r/europe or any smaller subs I've found are just filled with reactionaries trying to stir up hate for whatever reasons they have. There are reasonable voices there, people who are capable of actual conversation, but they're just drowned out. I…

In this regard, the subreddit r/NeutralPolitics is interesting: it aims at evidence-based discussions on political issues. Threads are somehow in-between HN and Wikipedia. It is definitely interesting to read, and at the same time, participating in a discussion is quite daunting.

The idea that there's such a thing as neutral politics is highly problematic.

Evidence and science is one thing. What you should do with it is another entirely. Every decision is a tradeoff. Science can't tell you what to value.

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#429

Post by ben_w »

leonidasrup wrote: post #426
ryukafalz wrote: post #44

As someone who's been pushing for renewables for quite a while now it's dismaying that it's taken a war to accelerate this push, but I'm glad to see that it's happening at least. It's doubly dismaying that my own country (US) is still doubling down on fossil fuels despite everything. The concern about a new dependency on China is real, but renewables do have the advantage that once you have the infrastructure in plac…

Germany is very slowly starting to understand, exiting nuclear power and installing a lot of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar power, does not make your country independent of fossil fuels. China builds a lot of renewables, but they don't build them to replace fossil fuels, they build them in addition to fossil fuels. We should absolutely not follow this way.

Germany has plenty of coal (and gas) plants for when the dunkelflaute happen: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...

But even if it didn't, not only grid-scale but also large-residential-scale batteries+PV is cheaper in Germany than industrially priced nuclear, and even "small" batteries+PV are cheaper than residential electricity: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/...

But electrification of transport and heating is more critical at this point than the inevitable short-term changes to electricity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

Re: Iran war energy shock sparks global push to reduce fossil fuel dependence

#430

Post by samuel »

yayachiken wrote: post #76
samuel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that easy, and the 2025 blackout good evidence of that. Renewables need a grid that's engineered for them and that require significative investments. Without them, closing power plants (of any kind) is, IMO, nonsensical. Ironically, Spain has plenty of Uranium, but there is an environmental law that doesn't allow its mining. https://alpoma.medium.com/uranium-in-spain-8ef975763257 This country is crazy.

> It's not that easy, and the 2025 blackout good evidence of that. Renewables need a grid that's engineered for them and that require significative investments. The outage in spain had multiple complex causes. While the grid had a rather routine instability/oscillation on-going during time of the incident, the actual point-of-no-return was completely non-technical: Prices crossed into the negatives, which caused gene…

Very timely, the final report has been released today.

I hadn't read the document you referenced, and I admit don't have the prior knowledge, nor the time, to fully understand all the implications of what it says. My opinion is then the result of reading and listening a variety of experts and news sources, and it will have some biases, for sure.

Still, I have skimmed the final report to see if there was something that I could understand from first hand (and to support my original point, not gonna lie), and I found this:

_The increasing penetration of variable renewable and distributed generation, further market integration, broader electrification, and evolving environmental and geopolitical risks place the European electricity system under increasingly challenging operational conditions, requiring higher levels of resilience._

Do you really think that my original point (as uniformed as it might be), namely, that the levels renewable energy currently present in the spanish grid require significative investments, was wrong?

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