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A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

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Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#121

Post by himinlomax »

barbazoo wrote: post #28
insane_dreamer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it wasn't for France having primarily used nuclear power decades ago, Europe as a whole would be in a much much worse state when it comes to CO2 emissions. That makes it abundantly clear that nuclear needs to be a part of the mix when it comes to non-emission generating energy production.

Not sure if that still holds true nowadays with renewable energy and storage having got cheaper and cheaper.

You'd need to be able to store WEEKS of electricity to make wind+solar work.

Currently, battery grid-scale storage stores seconds.

You'd need an increase of several orders of magnitude for this to work.

Even if manufacturing costs were magically 0, the amount of lithium, copper and other materials required would be unsustainable.

It's not going to happen.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#122

Post by spotplay »

Timwi wrote: post #118
socksy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also got annoyed by this, but worked out pretty quickly that if you hold down right click and drag then you can change the angle

There is no right-click on phones.

On most mobile maps, you can adjust the angle by dragging up or down with two fingers.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#123

Post by dasKrokodil »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #14
skagenpilot wrote: post #7

When looking at France, at a zoom level where one can see the whole country, all the green dots are located next to nuclear power plants. It's a good reminder that the french grid is mostly powered by nuclear. It'd be nice to see the same map over summer to see if the different electric mix then gives birth to a different map.

if it wasn't for France having primarily used nuclear power decades ago, Europe as a whole would be in a much much worse state when it comes to CO2 emissions. That makes it abundantly clear that nuclear needs to be a part of the mix when it comes to non-emission generating energy production.

Let's see... nuclear power is super expensive, relies on finite uranium resources and there is no safe solution to store the waste. Do we really want to rely on this?

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#124

Post by pyrale »

layer8 wrote: post #106
insane_dreamer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it wasn't for France having primarily used nuclear power decades ago, Europe as a whole would be in a much much worse state when it comes to CO2 emissions. That makes it abundantly clear that nuclear needs to be a part of the mix when it comes to non-emission generating energy production.

Germany’s net power grid imports are less than 5% (17% imports vs. 12.5% exports in 24H1), despite having no active nuclear power plants anymore. Around 60% of their domestically generated power currently comes from renewables (up 8% from last year). I don’t think it’s abundantly clear.

Net balance over long time periods isn't very interesting: it doesn't tell you what happens on the market and who needs the trade to happen. What you need to look at is whether these exports are correlated with peaks in production or peaks in usage.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#125

Post by pyrale »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #96
realusername wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result speaks for themselves, Germany still hasn't reached France 90s levels of emissions.

Yes it has: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity?tab=chart&t...

The data you provide quotes Germany being 50% more polluting than France per-GDP-unit, at the level France was at in 2007.

The issue with it is that dividing by GDP rather than, say, population or total energy used is kind of disingenuous. For instance, France's 2007 GDP can't be compared to Germany's 2022 GDP, so it's extremely hard to have an idea of what you're comparing.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#126

Post by ZeroGravitas »

throw0101a wrote: post #13

Meta: for those unfamiliar, 1.21 GW is a reference to the 1985 movie Back to the Future . Clip of the scene in question: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDuZqYeNiOA * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future If you haven't seen it, the entire trilogy is worth checking out: very fun and quite family friendly.

And if you're an HN reader and already know and love Back to the Future, then the Captain Disillusion's 2 part YouTube video about how the visual effects used ground breaking computer control of cameras to advance the state of the art is a good recommendation:

https://youtu.be/AtPA6nIBs5g?si=QidOC7VEn6mxXjBK

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#128

Post by pyrale »

pydry wrote: post #39
realusername wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result speaks for themselves, Germany still hasn't reached France 90s levels of emissions.

Energiewende didnt start in 1973, it was first authorized in late 2010. France's nuclear program was also very, very expensive: https://www.i-sis.org.uk/The_True_Costs_of_French_Nuclear_Po...

That article is extremely loaded. It bemoans every factor that made building nuclear a sensible choice, as if these factors were unfair and shouldn't have existed (with that logic, I guess Norway should never have built dams, and it's unfair that they have all these mountains). It also insists that France should have added a lot of burdensome process, which reminds me of CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Also bonus point for complaining about the Tennessee Valley Authority. I've read many articles about pricing the French nuclear fleet, but this was a first.

For people interested about a real inquiry discussing the price of the french nuclear program [1] which is actually exhaustive and well documented.

[1]: https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/EzPublish/themat...

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#129

Post by ZeroGravitas »

pyrale wrote: post #125
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it has: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity?tab=chart&t...

The data you provide quotes Germany being 50% more polluting than France per-GDP-unit, at the level France was at in 2007. The issue with it is that dividing by GDP rather than, say, population or total energy used is kind of disingenuous. For instance, France's 2007 GDP can't be compared to Germany's 2022 GDP, so it's extremely hard to have an idea of what you're comparing.

2007 is not in the 1990s which is the point I responded to. France was cleaning up in the 1990s but Germany is still doing better than France in even 1999. As you helpfully point out they were about France's 2007 level (when they had 70% nuclear electricity, 40% nuclear power, a hair below their absolute peak 41% nuclear which they hit a few years later) in 2022, so catching up to a global leader with lots of nuclear despite phasing out their own nuclear.

You can see the per capita numbers on the same site and it's the same basic story, France had a head start but Germany is cleaning up faster (while growing GDP faster).

One of the anti-German memes going around is that their decarbonisation is via deindustrialization, so per GDP helps avoid that accusation and adjusts for people importing their carbon as the country with the heavy industry gets paid.

Meanwhile the USA, which has the most nuclear plants and yet is clearly worse than Germany and the EU average, somehow gets a free pass. How odd. It's as if we attack the countries (and states) that reduce carbon without nuclear rather than the ones emitting lots of carbon.

Re: A pretty visualisation of the European power grid (2022)

#130

Post by globular-toast »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #112
immibis wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counting only electricity production when you are talking about CO2 emissions is dishonest. Cars also emit CO2.

That doesn’t make sense. The goal is decarbonation, not arbitrary account. The sole reason to mix together things that don’t go together is making bad faith arguments like in this case.

If the goal is "decarbonation" then the only thing that matters is the bottom line. If nuclear truly leads to a lower net carbon output (which I'm sure it does, unless using nuclear power somehow causes people to heat their homes more or drive ICE vehicles more) then what are you worried about?
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