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Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

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Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#141
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.

You might be better off capping the power for each home and letting their occupants decide what is essential or not.

So your freezer shuts down when your toaster is on? A hard cap that's low enough to make a difference seems like a bad idea, there are many devices which shouldn't be cut off suddenly. And that's ignoring things like medical devices.

Of course there's already a hard cap (usually ~9kW over here), but I suspect most people never reach it.

There are plans in Belgium to charged based on peak power (something silly like "max power used in any 15 minute period"), which would drive up the cost for the average consumer without reducing demand (as people tend not to have much choice in when they use their most power hungry appliances).

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do comments like these only pop up on articles that highlight problems in europe? I never see them in the hundreds of articles per month that focus on the US. It's weird because that is exactly the type of comment you used to read from fragile patriotic americans that were unable to handle any criticism back in the early 2000s, but this time from europeans.

Because social media is currently under MASSIVE attack from Russian trolls. And then there are people doing it for free, because their are easily manipulated or because they think they’d benefit from Russian puppets taking over their country… I wonder on which side you are.

The coming EU energy crisis is real.

Read the articles. These aren't Russian trolls. They are well described fundamental problems.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#144

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

Just..... Why? This is so balatanly stupid I can't find my words..

Why? Because the reactor was ancient and decrepit. It doesn't help that the power plant in question was badly damaged by a saboteur a few years ago. A saboteur who was never caught nor identified.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#145
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nord Stream 1 is broken due to sanctions on equipment repair It's well known that this is not true. You are perpetuating russian propaganda.

> It's well known that this is not true Well known? Is it? Could you please give some reference then? No one would be surprised to see a "work-to-rule" action, but how is it "russian propaganda" that Europe had sanctioned Russian energy industry and it "somehow" had consequences?

Russian propaganda says that Nord Stream 1 is closed due to repairs. It obviously is not. It is closed because Russia wages economic warfare against Europe. You won't find a peer-reviewed double-blind study saying this, signed by foreign minister Lavrov with an interview in the appendix where he states that this is in fact Russia's deliberate policy choice, but one can use some basic reasoning.

The desire for punishing Europe certainly stems from Europe's similarly uncompromising economic warfare against Russia, but let's at least try to focus on the ground truths and not get caught up in a bunch of transparent lies.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#146
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

WINTER is a special case? Is this a serious comment?

If renewables cannot handle WINTER then that's pretty telling of what quality of a solution it is.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#147
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next investment for you then would be chemical batteries to store power. Given that you are paying in Euros, how do you expect to get enough solar energy over winter?

Where I live (Portugal) I already did many winters with solar when renting; I had the generator on a few hours 1 day in 1 year, the rest was enough sun to make it work. Same in Spain when I lived there.

How many square meters solar and how much did you get out of it? Did you use a battery?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#148
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.

You can watch live on https://app.electricitymaps.com/map how cross-border exports look like across the countries. There is also a historical view.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#149
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be better off capping the power for each home and letting their occupants decide what is essential or not.

So your freezer shuts down when your toaster is on? A hard cap that's low enough to make a difference seems like a bad idea, there are many devices which shouldn't be cut off suddenly. And that's ignoring things like medical devices. Of course there's already a hard cap (usually ~9kW over here), but I suspect most people never reach it. There are plans in Belgium to charged based on peak power (something silly like "…

US houses can draw 166 KW (or half that if older 100amp service) but you’d probably be raided for running a grow op.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#150
post #104
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…

Every left wing government was fine with cheap russian gas for decades.
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