Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#131

Post by tmikaeld » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

tgv wrote: post #104

lawn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of the affected aren't the ones responsible for this mess, why is it hard to be sympathetic for those people?

TBH, the majority is responsible for electing right-wing governments or coalitions that have put their head where their wallet is: pumping up profits of their friends and well-doers, lowering taxes, and privatizing and further ignoring infrastructure and governmental duties (and ignoring climate change, long-term changes in society, etc.). It hurts me to say that the many of the former social-democratic, and quite a…

> It hurts me to say that the many of the former social-democratic, and quite a few of the green, parties simply participated.

In Sweden, the green and socialists have been running the show for the past 8 years and during this period shut down 4 nuclear reactors that had at least 20+ years left of steam.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#132

Post by hrpnk » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #123

bombcar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it is cost effective going forward to install two meters and panels on every house with one being “essential” and the other being “intermittent” so the power company has the option of blacking out the intermittent boxes only. I’d rather have all my computers, lights, etc shut down than my whole house.

Something similar was done in Canada about 40 years ago with the high-usage lights installed in every home (usually next to the washer/dryer). If the light was on, people paid significantly more. It was very very effective at reducing peak consumption.

This is great, because it shows/teaches people what high-usage is. So far, I've seen very little guidance and advice to citizens on how exactly they can contribute to lower energy usage. Only businesses say they will stop production or change opening times. Is this a missed opportunity?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#133

Post by quonn » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #127

quonn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually Germany usually exports power to France. In fact many of the nuclear plants in France don‘t work, especially this year.

"usually" just means when their renewable power happens to be running. French have been using the last few years to do maintenance on their nuclear plants. Going into this winter, Germany will suffer far far more than France.

Let‘s see. France heats with incredibly inefficient wall heaters.

In any case, this winter is very special. It‘s not a good example to make an argument for one technology or another. Long-term I think Germany is better prepared. A lot of work has been going into heat pumps, properly isolating houses, renewables and so on.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#134

Post by yolo3000 » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #12

Most likely, Italy and eastern Europe, who are net importers. Germany is a net exporter, so they would only have blackouts out of solidarity.

You mean Germany is a net exporter of imported Russian gas.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#135

Post by koheripbal » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

lawn wrote: post #39

kurupt213 wrote: post #11

It’s hard to be sympathetic when this situation was so obvious and preventable. This is what short term greed and irresponsible governance looks like.

The vast majority of the affected aren't the ones responsible for this mess, why is it hard to be sympathetic for those people?

The wave of mass hysteria in Germany, after the Japan incident, to kill nuclear (which I personally suspect was driven by Russian influence operations) came with broad public support.

...so no, I continue to have little sympathy to any issues Germany will have this winter.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#136

Post by koheripbal » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #79

kurupt213 wrote: post #11

It’s hard to be sympathetic when this situation was so obvious and preventable. This is what short term greed and irresponsible governance looks like.

A huge part of this was Putin. How would you prevent Putin?

An EU energy policy that didn't rely on Russian gas and didn't funnel literally hundreds of billions to Putin's regime would have been a start.

There were SO SO many public warnings about this.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#137

Post by bombcar » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

bittercynic wrote: post #119

bombcar wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in general are idiots and would freeze to death at the end of the month just as they roll to credit when the paycheck dries up. You’d have to do it on a day to day basis or hourly. That could actually work - use too much power in an hour or day and it shuts off for awhile.

GP suggests capping power, not energy, which avoids this scenario.

Do you mean limiting the size of the service to a house? Because unless you have massive batteries for intermittent loads that would prohibit dryers and ovens from being electric.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#138

Post by KronisLV » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

Tenoke wrote: post #113

xiphias2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think that all Europeans are going to vacations and buying game consoles, you havent been to a village in an Eastern-European country yet. I am sure that living from $70/month would be hard for any of us, but some people have to keep their whole family alive from that money, and definately depend on the government this winter. If they freeze, nobody will know about them and they will be just deleted fro…

I've been to villages in Eastern Europe and wood burning is among the main methods of heating. I'm guessing the price increases of everything else is what's a bigger problem there.

> I've been to villages in Eastern Europe and wood burning is among the main methods of heating.

I am from Eastern Europe (Latvia) and this does mostly hold true for the countryside: wood burning stoves are common.

However, it is likely that inflation and other cost increases will also affect the prices of firewood from here on out, as well as getting it delivered (unless you decided to secure your own, though depending on where/how you do that, the legality might be dubious).

From what I know of, most people are noticeably hit by the increase of prices in the stores (as well as a somewhat decreased selection of what's available), in addition to greatly increased electricity prices, which has been a topic that gets brought up often in the news.

There aren't that many great solutions for that, to be honest - both diesel generators and solar panels are too expensive for most people, even though there are programs to aid families with purchasing and setting up their own, if they're capable of partaking in those: https://www.altum.lv/en/services/individuals/energy-efficien... (the Latvian translation has more information https://www-altum-lv.translate.goog/pakalpojumi/iedzivotajie...)

That said, it's probably difficult to undertake something like that, when you're living from paycheck to paycheck.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#139

Post by micwag » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

origin_path wrote: post #81

distances wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are currently no European sanctions against Russian gas. Nobody is very happy about it, but Europe would still buy that gas if the pipelines were open.

Multiple gas pipelines from Russia are closed because European governments refuse to allow them to run. That's gas sanctions, why do you argue otherwise? For example Germany refuses to open Nord Stream 2, and Nord Stream 1 is broken due to sanctions on equipment repair - the turbines are made by Siemens and several are sitting in UK factories unable to be re-exported back due to sanctions. Although the troubles with…

> We also have to remember that Europe seized Russian euros and broke contracts in other ways

First point is true, but the second ist not. Germany went out its way to ensure all contracts are fulfilled to avoid this claim.

> it's not really obvious if Russia would even want to go back to selling to Europe.

Russia very much wants to go back to selling gas and oil to europe, they have after all no other relevant industries and pipelines to China/India don't have the capacity to replace european delivery.

> Europe is buying their gas anyway due to arbitrage so it looks like a winner for Russia unfortunately.

Even chinese and indian experts see russia as the loser of this conflict and to be relegated to a possible chinese puppet state in the future.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#140

Post by koheripbal » Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

nebalee wrote: post #53

bpodgursky wrote: post #3

Belgium just shut down a functional nuclear reactor: https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Belgium-T...

https://taketonews.com/engie-repeats-message-after-open-lett... “The closing dates are determined by law and the licenses to operate the power plants end on those dates. That has been established for a long time and we have been preparing for that for a long time.” The government did ask Engie in July to see whether both reactors could possibly continue for a few more months to bridge the difficult winter, but accord…

Germany tried to make the exact same claim this year about their three remaining plants - but the nuclear engineers running the plants were brave enough to say the gov't was lying. ...not that it mattered because the German gov't just doubled down on closing those plants regardless.

There is no technical reason they could not have extended their shutdown plans.

This is just an unfortunate combination of bureaucratic lethargy and anti-nuclear ideologues.