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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

#151

Post by elric »

bpodgursky wrote: post #3

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

When do you suggest nuclear reactors should be shut down? After they stop being functional? Seems risky.

Is the timing unfortunate? Yes. But everything else is just exaggerated. This was a small reactor which was responsible for a tiny amount of production in a tiny country.

Should we replace it? Maybe. But then we should have started construction 20 years ago. Given that this didn't happen, the rest of the discussion is somewhat moot. We could probably start replacing it today, but not many nuclear power plants are being built in Europe, costs are insane, and timeframes are so long that no one is willing to invest.

There are (somewhat literally) crowd funded suppliers of renewable energy (cooperatives like Ecopower.be). Perhaps someone should start something similar for nukes.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#152

Post by pjmlp »

lostlogin wrote: post #80
pjmlp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone forgot the laws of physics regarding electricy production for the amount of cars in transit.

Petrol prices rising are part of this crisis too. Most EVs are charged over night, when grid usage is low. Doesn’t that maximise the use of a strained system?

Most countries need their electrical heaters and cooking stoves as well during the night.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#153

Post by pjmlp »

dilyevsky wrote: post #98
pjmlp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone forgot the laws of physics regarding electricy production for the amount of cars in transit.

What the efficiency of electric motor vs ice since you seem to be physics buf?

We are discussing the efficiency of the electric power grid to charge all existing vehicles from 2022, assuming they would be all electric as of tomorrow.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#154

Post by quonn »

koheripbal wrote: post #130
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.

Without Russian imports, Germany is only a net exporter when their renewables are running. This winter Germany will suffer major shortages of power.

No we won‘t.

Gas storages will be almost completely full and the usage has already dropped a lot.

Maybe next winter. But by then we probably have a replacement.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#155

Post by hrpnk »

koheripbal wrote: post #135
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?

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.

Regarding influence - there is a fairly recent report (Sep, 20th) from German journalists on the Russian lobby: https://correctiv-org.translate.goog/aktuelles/russland-ukra...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#156

Post by jltsiren »

hef19898 wrote: post #20
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.

Us Europeans can still look at Texas, if we want to know how it is properly done, can't we?

This is more similar to California than Texas. Europe is not facing a shortage of energy but a shortage of generation and transmission capacity in times of peak demand. Luckily, as we know from California, there are plenty of responsible people in the society. When there is a risk of shortage and blackouts, many people will voluntarily lower their power consumption for a while.

Also, because this is about peak demand, increasing base load generation is of limited help. There is a shortage of power plants that are cheap enough to keep idle most of the time but can be adjusted quickly. That means hydro and natural gas. Even coal is too expensive. Storage may be the long-term solution, but we are not there yet.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#157

Post by marvin »

nivenkos wrote: post #100
lostlogin wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

By building nuclear power plants and electrifying industry over the last 15 years since the Litvinenko poisoning, etc. But joining the war this year was crazy given the current situation, Europe is doomed.

Look on the bright side. At least Europe has made it clear that they won't bow down to force. It should ideally have made the obvious policy choices eight years ago at the latest.

But doing the short-term irrational thing and joining the economic (and in weapons support, kinetic) war against Russia is exactly what the fucked-up initial conditions require. When you've worked yourself into that kind of lose-lose situation, making the rational choice has a long-term game theoretic downside.

The next Putin that manages to maneuver a Western country into a bind can't count on them rolling onto their backs and crying for mercy, even if that seemed like the rational choice. We've seen it demonstrated, also disproving that Westerners are lazy, fat, spoiled and unable to handle significant pain for a greater cause.

This is certainly a lesson for the West, but it's also a lesson for the autocrats.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#158

Post by cperciva »

bitschubser_ wrote: post #40
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.

isn't it much "easier" to implement some kind of progressive price on energy? first 1000kw/h are "cheaper" than market (per person in household), next 500kw/h double the price, next 500kw/h doubles again etc... For things like heatpumps you usually have an extra meter with special day/night tarifs (in germany), the rest is metered as general consumption. I always wonder through how much energy my peers burn, we have…

BC does that for electricity, but there's talk of getting rid of it -- because it punishes people for using electric cars and heat pumps.

Great for reducing electricity consumption; not great for reducing total energy usage.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#159

Post by elric »

bombcar wrote: post #149
elric wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you've got your units mixed up. 100A @ 120V = 12kW. Assuming the newer homes are 200A, that would be 24kW. 166kW seems ... unreasonable, especially over 120V, that's like 1400A. Toasty.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#160

Post by quonn »

nivenkos wrote: post #100
lostlogin wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

By building nuclear power plants and electrifying industry over the last 15 years since the Litvinenko poisoning, etc. But joining the war this year was crazy given the current situation, Europe is doomed.

Europe is not doomed.

If we didn‘t join this war, the war would come to us. Most Europeans fortunately understand this.

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