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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

#261

Post by teraflop »

kennend3 wrote: post #258
teraflop wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a multiple-tariff meter. Of course it's easier to implement with modern electronics, but there's no reason you can't design an electromechanical meter device that has two different mechanisms to tally up "peak" and "off-peak" usage. I just did a quick Google search and found patents dating back to the 1970s.

I think you intentionally overlooked my point. I wasn't debating if these meters exist or not, it was that they were never used in Ontario. Continuing your logic, did Canada ever use these "multiple-tariff" meters? If they did, what was the point of the light the OP mentioned?

I certainly didn't intentionally overlook anything. I took your "doesn't make sense" to mean that you were questioning the possibility of an "old" meter accounting for different electricity rates at different times. Since it seems that's not what you meant, I apologize for misunderstanding you.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#262

Post by moonchrome »

Gwypaas wrote: post #241
kennend3 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is also "pro-nuclear" it is upsetting to see this take place. The "anti-nuclear" camp has won, but based on what sort of logical argument? Fear? what about Chernobyl? It is one thing to be "anti-nuclear" but they failed to provide alternatives. "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. Now millions face rolling blackouts and energy shortages whe…

Simply cost. If the plants started in the early 2000s would have been delivered on time and budget they would be a huge part of the transition today. Now nuclear costs 3-5x more compared to renewables and is simply not relevant. > "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. If land use is what you measure impact based on a much better target is the beef industry…

>Now nuclear costs 3-5x more and is simply not relevant.

Compared to what ? Energy prices have jumped 2-3x in some places so far, and it's not even winter yet. Comparing renewable prices as averages or whatever is fine if you like blackouts ?

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#264

Post by rightbyte »

elric wrote: post #141
whiplash451 wrote: post #105

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 "…

> So your freezer shuts down when your toaster is on?

That is actually not a bad idea. Would only decrease power though, not energy consumption.

(Assuming the freezer is built to read the power meter and decide when to not run the compressor).

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#265

Post by lucumo »

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?

They are responsible. Democracy doesn't mean that the people get to pick their scapegoats. It means that the people have a choice in steering the country, and consequently a responsibility to steer it right.

Assigning someone with dumb ideas to run the country, not checking and correcting them, and then scapegoating them when it goes wrong... That's not democracy, that's laziness and cowardice.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#266

Post by locallost »

izacus wrote: post #222
locallost wrote: post #211

I read the whole thread. At one point he goes on and on how France is shaky because their nuclear plants are offline caused by corrosion issues etc. On the very next tweet he blasts Germany for prematurely shutting down "the most reliable energy source nuclear". Well if they're reliable, why is France in this world of hurt right now? I agree about one thing, and that it really is a perfect storm of issues, and that t…

> Well if they're reliable, why is France in this world of hurt right now? This an exceedingly intellectually lazy argument which shows that you're either horribly biased (and never engaged with the reading material properly) or didn't even spend a minute thinking through what you're asking. It's somewhere on the level of "well, why is there snow in New York if global warming is happening HUUUUH?!". (Not to mention t…

They're in the process of being started for months now. It's even mentioned in the tweets that EdF has a poor track record of keeping their word. How much I would know if I would only read the material properly.

Reliability is a word and it has a meaning. With that in mind nothing beats renewables because the tech just works and they're so decentralized that a glitch of huge proportions would be needed to make them not work as designed. On the other hand a huge power plant can go out unexpectedly and take a massive part of the grid offline just as unexpectedly. That's unreliable and it's in fact what has happened this year.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#267

Post by hef19898 »

mardifoufs wrote: post #202
mijoharas wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I guess typically european way to deflect criticism It'd be great if you didn't lower yourself to name calling as well. (Note: I don't much like the comment you're responding to, but let's be civil here)

You are right. Sorry about that, I didn't mean it to be insulting.

That makes two...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#268

Post by thoughtstheseus »

jhoechtl wrote: post #263

I carefully read many of the well recherched comments. My take-away: Green parties all over Europe were in dictatorship of the accepted moral public opinion, making fun of counter arguments and led Europe (just Germany?) into the missery they are in now.

Mostly Germany. France has a diversified national energy strategy of nuclear and gas from many areas.

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#269

Post by AnonCoward42 »

locallost wrote: post #211

I read the whole thread. At one point he goes on and on how France is shaky because their nuclear plants are offline caused by corrosion issues etc. On the very next tweet he blasts Germany for prematurely shutting down "the most reliable energy source nuclear". Well if they're reliable, why is France in this world of hurt right now? I agree about one thing, and that it really is a perfect storm of issues, and that t…

> The part about renewables requiring trillions in investment to replace nuclear I didn't get at all - they're the cheapest possible solution.

The problem with renewable energies in Germany is that we do not have (or can't get?) enough water power plants. Solar energy doesn't really work at all, because energy is also needed at night and wind energy is also not very reliable. To compensate for this you need even more wind turbines. The assumption here seems to be that these are really better for the climate, but I don't see that either if you have to use that much resources to build these to compensate for miniscule amounts of basic electricity load.

> My guess is that renewables will continue to be a huge winner, especially in this crisis.

Winner of what? In Germany we have thousands of thousands of wind turbines and still we are sliding into an energy crisis. Sure, some days they probably could produce 100% of the electricity demand, but some days they barely produce any electricity. The idea was to compensate with gas power plants ...

Re: Europe is in danger of rolling electricity shortages

#270

Post by rightbyte »

bitL wrote: post #207
Sharlin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An EV is a pretty good powerbank if one needs a car anyway.

That's a bit too steep just for a powerbank ;-)

If you have a gasoline car you can charge in that from the starter battery.

A starter battery is about 1kWh.

Or just keep a lead acid battery around charged up and connect a ciggarette lighter socket to it.

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